Waiting for Shalit ... and a thousand other prisoners

Known for their black humour, Palestinians in Gaza joke openly about Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who has been in captivity in the besieged strip since June 2006.

Young and old quip they have seen the Israeli sergeant directing traffic at a Gaza junction as a Hamas policeman.

“He’s in my basement,” a young graduate from Gaza City said, recounting how Israelis regularly bombard Gaza with SMSes and leaflets dropped from fighter planes with messages urging Palestinians to give any information about Shalit’s whereabouts for a US$ 2 million reward.

Another one told me that if Hamas were smart they would marry him to a Gazan woman, or maybe to four.

“That way he will have children and we would have much more captives to bargain with,” he said.

Palestinians themselves recognise the absurdity of the situation. Since Shalit was captured in an audacious cross-border raid more than three years ago, he has become a world celebrity, known in the four corners of the world as the young Israeli who was “kidnapped” by Islamist fighters.

Never mind that he was actually captured during a military operation, but the fact that there are thousands of faceless and nameless Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails shows just how unbalanced the whole equation between Israel and Palestinians is.

The last week has seen a total frenzy of conflicting reports about the negotiations between Israel and Hamas that would lead to Shalit’s swap with 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Many Gazans speak of the period “before Shalit” and “after Shalit”, to contrast the times before and after the blockade imposed by Israel on Gaza. Many people resent the abduction, blaming it for the hardships that ensued, crippling their daily lives.

Mahmoud Abu Hamza, 47 from Jabalya refugee camp, contrasts “the miserable life today” with the time when he worked as a construction worker in Israel, although in reality he and many other Gazans were stopped from working there after the 2000 intifada, years before Hamas took over.

Yet Abu Hamza and many others who do not see eye to eye with Hamas look forward to the prospect of getting 1,000 Palestinians freed from Israeli jails, just as last October the Islamist movement won a great victory through the release of 20 Palestinian women from prison for a mere three minutes of video footage of the same Shalit. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza were reminded that Hamas’s approach – that of the armed struggle – in contrast with that of Mahmoud Abbas, was ultimately yielding results.

Indeed, if the swap does happen – with the latest reports suggesting it might happen on Monday – Hamas will come out as the victorious force to be reckoned with. In spite of the blockade and international boycott of this movement labelled as terrorist by the US and the EU, Israel will give the ultimate testimonial that Hamas have to be on the negotiating table, not out in the cold, where they actually got stronger.

Gazans hope the release of Shalit will also bring about the lifting of the crippling blockade – although nothing is given – but by all accounts Hamas will score the greatest points on the Arab street.

The agreement will also have wide political repercussions for Palestinians, especially if jailed Fatah official Marwan Barghouti – currently serving five life sentences for masterminding attacks in Israel – is released.

Many hail Barghouti as the next Palestinian leader, although senior Fatah officials are not particularly fond of him. Nevertheless, Mahmoud Abbas’s decision not to stand for re-election next year will make it much easier for him. Barghouti’s warm relationship with Hamas may also help to thaw relations between the Islamist rulers of Gaza and Fatah.

In any case, Fatah, Israel and the rest of the world will have to come to terms with the fact that despite years of blockade, wars and assassinations of its leaders, the Islamists are not only here to stay, but they are scoring points with their own people.

Gaza facing gas crisis

“In two days’ time, I won’t have any bread to sell,” Abed the baker tells me grimly as he hands me over my dozen pitta breads. “There is no gas at all.”

Like other bakeries before it in the last few days, Al Hasouna Bakery will have to close down if cooking gas remains out of reach in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Restaurants, hospitals and families are already feeling the shortage, most of them having run out of reserves just as the weather got colder. Many fear that while food will be available, families will not be able to cook it for the Muslim holy feast of Eid Al Adha at the end of the month.

The problem started about a month ago when Israeli authorities decided to change the crossing through which they transfer gas and fuel into Gaza.

While the Nahal Oz fuel terminal is tailor-made for gas and fuel transfer, taking 30 minutes to send fuel from one truck to the other side, the Kerem Shalom crossing takes up to three hours to get the same amount transferred.

The latter is situated in the middle of the desert, an hour away from Gaza’s gas depots as opposed to the 20-minute drive to reach Nahal Oz, and has no storage facilities. This means that while fuel in Nahal Oz can be transferred into the six existing containers holding 60,000 litres each, in Kerem Shalom the transfer has to go directly into Palestinian trucks in tricky manoeuvres requiring timely coordination. Israeli authorities justify the use of Kerem Shalom on security grounds.

“Kerem Shalom is not equipped to transfer the amount of gas needed daily in the Gaza Strip,” the head of the Gaza union of gas station owners, Mahmoud Al Shawwa, said. Last Monday, 30 gas stations were closed after only 49 tons of cooking gas entered Gaza, that is 2% of the weekly need.

Over the last two months, gas entering Gaza fell down from 2,500 tons in September to 1,600 in October and a meagre 400 tons until mid November.

According to Al Shawwa, the 1.5 million population of Gaza needs 4,500 tons of gas per month in summer, and 6,000 tons in winter.

The situation is similar to November and December last year, when a serious shortage of cooking gas caused bakeries to shut down in the run up to the Israeli assault on Gaza.

Now, the little gas that makes it through is being kept for bakeries and hospitals, although Abed’s bakery still didn’t get its share last week and hospitals anticipate running out of gas in the next few days. A falafel shop owner using his last gas canister says he will soon have to resort to diesel, which is pumped inside canisters to produce vapour like in the old times.

“Diesel is terrible, it turns my kitchen black, but what can we do?” said Abu Bashir. “We are left with no other option.” The solution however is not available to bakers, whose equipment is made to run on gas.

Some families who have the luxury of a garden or backyard have already shifted to cooking on firewood, like in the old times. Problem is, everything in Gaza is like ‘in the old times’, thanks to the Israeli blockade. Instead of gas-guzzling vans, people in Gaza use donkeys; in the absence of concrete, people are building with mud.

At my flat I keep a kerosene lamp in the living room, not as a rustic decoration, but because I have to light it almost every night during power cuts.