Spartan passage

Located on Gaza's northern border with Israel, Erez, with its metal structures, electronic gates and gyrating devices, is the most modern border post in the Middle East. And its large spotless windows and constantly mopped floors easily make it the cleanest.

But Erez is also the most cold and unfriendly place. At the checkpoint, Hamas security guards note down my name and passport number.

Other guards, from their shipping-container outpost, call Erez and inform them about the arrival of a passenger (so that the Israelis don't shoot).

A road covered in dust and dirt stretches ahead where a bullet-riddled metal corridor had once stood. It is flanked by the rubble of the industrial zone on one side and green fields on the other.

A Palestinian porter and a man in an orange jersey with Hebrew writing accompany me.

The porter gets 20 new Israeli shekels when he passes my bag to another, who, along with the man in orange, walks me through an open-caged corridor with corrugated metal sheet roofing until we reach a cement wall with a line of iron doors.

After about 15 minutes, one of the doors slides open. I walk through and am asked to open my bag for inspection.

The person in charge then tilts the bag in the direction of a camera and talks facing it in Hebrew. He repeats the procedure many times and then pushes the bag back towards me.

A physically challenged woman ahead of me stands clutching the metal bars of a revolving gate.

She wobbles on her weak legs until a relative lowers her into a wheelchair. He pushes the wheelchair up the short asphalt incline leading to the next Israeli security stage.

At the end of a long row of booths canopied by a metal ceiling with air-conditioning ducts, I wait for a little red light to turn green.

The door in front of me clicks. I push it open and see the physically challenged woman seated on a plastic chair next to her relative, waiting to be X-rayed. Everything must go through the X-ray machine — belt, jacket, computer, phone, change ...

I pass through another door into an area with a long grid of boxes just as mine.

Through the glass windows above I could see young Israeli security guards sitting glued to computer screens.

Yet another door clicks open and I step into a cubicle that resembles an incubator. A voice tells me to place my feet on yellow shoe marks, hands on my head. I am told not to move.

The scanning machine whines into motion and its vertical bars swirl around me.

Then a transparent door hisses open. I step into the next room and begin waiting for my belongings. Now, for the long part.

The process has taken about an hour. It is nearly noon. My flight is at 5pm.

Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport is less than an hour from Erez. Even if passport control takes an hour, there is still time to spare. Three Israeli soldiers are chatting in a control booth.

One of them smiles and takes my passport. She frowns. “What's your father's name? … grandfather's name? … e-mail and phone number? … Why were you in Gaza?'' Not exactly for tourism. “Go sit down.''

I sit down next to a British woman who is returning to London. She is not coming back any time soon. She is tired and has turbulence in her bowels.

She has a date in London. She offers me a ride to the airport, which I accept. The physically challenged woman rolls up behind me. She is pale and grey. It is almost 1pm. The British woman talks to the Israeli girls to let her use the toilet.

I stand up and pace back and forth. I try a smile on the girls and ask about my passport: “It is not our problem. Go sit down,'' one of them says.

I tell them I will be sitting in the taxi and aeroplane. “That's not our problem,'' they say. I ask the girls to call their boss.

He comes out puffing his chest and protruding his chin. I explain that I have a flight and extrapolate on how I would appreciate him accelerating the process. He says it has to do with “security''. I have a flight to catch. “Not our problem''.

Hours pass in a sobering mix of frustration and repeated pleas.

The response remains the same: “not our problem''. Some more reasoning and rage, and eventual renunciation.
The British woman said she would wait but left, understandably, to get to her date.

At 3.30pm, my name is called and I walk through the clicking doors, over the washed floor, past the clean windows to the parking lot.

The woman in the wheelchair is still waiting. I call a taxi and race to the airport but I miss my flight. Israel requires you to be at the Ben Gurion three hours in advance, for more security checks.

I spend the night at the airport to board the 6am flight back across the Mediterranean Sea.

Stuart Reigeluth is a Middle East specialist based in Madrid.

Making the interlude comfortable

If Israel is going to make travellers miss their flights, or even prolong the passage for no reason, then here are a few things they could do to make the waiting more endurable: