Gaza is back to square one. Reeling from the seven-year-old Israeli siege and the tightening of screws by Egypt, the Strip is once again on the verge of another humanitarian disaster.
Since Israel put Gaza under a naval, air and land blockade in 2007, the roughly 1.7 million residents have had to endure much economic and social hardships that was partially overcome through the building of tunnels connecting the southern part of Gaza to the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
After 2006 when Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections but wasn’t allowed to form the Palestinian government, and as it retreated to Gaza and forcibly formed the executive authority there, Israel imposed a blockade on the territory.
The intention was to strangulate them into submission, and force Hamas to relinquish power. But this didn’t happen for Gazans turned to Egypt and its Sinai peninsula in a bid to break the blockade. This involved building of a sinew of underground tunnels that connected Gaza with Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.
The tunnels became Gaza’s alternative for economic survival. The view became that if Israel wants to squeeze the lifeline of Gaza and suffocate its people, then alternatives, and cheaper ones at that, would be found — underground, connecting the cities, town and camps with Egypt.
And so tunnels, hundreds and hundreds of them, began to be built. The figures are sketchy, but at one time it was said there were more than 1,000 tunnels built from underneath houses and olive groves in Gaza, stretching to Rafah and different strategic points in the Sinai.
While the figures are sketchy with some even suggesting around 2,000 tunnels were built, including VIP tunnels with full telecommunications, figures put out by the United Nations state that up till June 2013, over 300 tunnels were in operation.
They have served as the lungs for Gaza amidst a cruel Israeli siege that many admit, including European politicians such as former British premier David Cameron, turned the Strip into a large prison camp. Most of the essentials were coming in through the tunnels, including thousands and thousands of tons of food such as fish and potato chips, besides medicine, clothing, computers, livestock, fuel, construction materials, cars etc.
Contrary to what the Israeli blockade was supposed to do, it was argued there was a renewed and unexpected boom in Gaza’s economy. Around 15,000 people were working in the tunnels, in between digging them, maintaining them and carrying trade through the corridors deep underground. The tunnels created work for others outside in the mainstream economy, including for engineers, truck drivers, and shopkeepers. It was argued that two-thirds of consumer goods in the Gazan markets came through the tunnels.
According to UN statistics 3,000 tons of cement was coming through the tunnels on a daily basis and one million litres of petrol was being transported to provide power regeneration to the Gaza infrastructure, its hospitals, schools, water and sewage plants.
Everyone worked and everyone benefited despite living under the excruciating Israeli blockade. It had been argued 70 per cent of the Hamas budget, put at $700 million, was coming from taxes imposed on goods, commodities and consumer items coming through the tunnels. A large chunk of this was used to pay the more than 50,000 government employees in Gaza.
Indeed, Gaza was able to overcome the blockade. However, the situation soon turned sour with regional political developments emanating from the Arab Spring and the consequences it created while changing some Arab governments and pressuring others.
Gaza bore the brunt of developments on two fronts as it faced strains because of what’s happening in Syria and Hamas’s refusal to support the government there in its war against opposition groups including Islamists. That in turn affected Hamas’s relations with Iran, which supports the Syrian regime, and which reportedly cut off its $250 million annual aid package to the Gaza Strip.
Strains were also felt on Gaza’s relations with its western neighbour, Egypt. While relations were good at first, especially when Islamists came to power in June 2012, they drastically deteriorated a year later, after the ousting of president Mohammad Mursi on July 3.
Such a move was in many ways foreboding, foretelling of what was to come. Indeed, Hamas, the tunnel owners, their workers and the local economy at large didn’t need to wait long before the new Egyptian government went after what had become the lifeline of Gaza. It ceaseless destroyed the tunnels.
Egypt claimed it needed to demolish these underground corridors because they served as arms smuggling conduits to Islamists involved in waging war against Egyptian soldiers and military units in different parts of the Sinai Peninsula.
Needless to say this was something completely denied by the Hamas government in Gaza but it was that argued by September 2013, 90 per cent of the tunnels had been destroyed or water-logged and only 10 per cent wearily functioned with many workers thrown once again on the unemployment heap that very quickly climbed to 30 per cent. A few months before that, the construction sector was in a boom mode and it was responsible for 80 per cent of the economic growth in Gaza. It quickly become idle.
Today, Gaza is once again sealed at both ends. At the Rafah crossing-point, Gaza’s window to the world, measures have become desperate with movement in and out of the Strip restrictive, signified by shorter working hours that were cut from nine to four hours a day; and six working days instead of seven. The crossing is restricted for authorised travellers like foreigners, people holding visas and patients with official referrals.
Indeed, the movement trickled down to 200 a day, each way, to Gaza and out of the Strip, a far cry from the around 1,300 people who were allowed to go out and come in through the crossing in the early months of 2013. Many people are locked inside the Strip, especially those who came for holidays and are working in Gulf countries and fear losing their visas. The same applied for students studying abroad who can’t get out and fear losing their university seats.
Before the closures, there was a constant stream of international delegations coming every month to see for themselves, help in whatever way they could, they came carrying food and medicines and expressed solidarity with the Palestinians. In certain months, up to 27 delegations came to Gaza through Rafah. These have stopped completely now.
Life is indeed becoming miserable for the people of Gaza. With scarce commodities, which have become too expensive anyway for the majority of people, and little fuel, the Strip is experiencing long hours of darkness because of the power cuts that last up to 12 hours. There is simply no fuel for water and sewage pumps. Effluent is once again overflowing either on land, in between neighbourhoods, towns and camps and/or into the sea, prompting many to speak of an eminent ecological disaster on-hand.
In a macabre way that may make Israeli politicians look up as it may reach the shores of the Jewish state, which surrounds the Strip. Only time will tell what is around the corner. For the Gazans, however, this amounts to more heartache and hardships that they will have to endure and weigh the political developments in the region, in Israel and arguably in their relations with the Palestinian National Authority.
Marwan Asmar is a commentator based in Amman.
