Yesterday I posted an important blogpost from a friend of my wife's who is in Gaza now. I emailed her and asked her a few questions. Her response. I urge all to read to the end:
requests were submitted by international, NGOs, journalists, etc. COGAT is
the office that it goes through, part of the Israeli military, and
they had to hire extra people just to handle the load.
So of the first
orgs that applied, some got permits, some didn't, and it was just
based on luck– Amnesty was, Human Rights Watch wasn't, etc. But the orgs that have
applied from late Feb onwards have for the most part not gotten
permits. For example, Christian Aid, TroCaire, major international NGOs–they
cannot get the permit for a single person to come in. A friend from
Emergency Aid was only given a 3 month permit and then needs to leave
and they wont give someone else from his org another one.
I was incredibly lucky to get it, especially because I applied through an
international NGO but for a permit to work here at a local human rights NGO, it is a
definite fluke that I got it, though it took 6 weeks of calling the
COGAT office every single day. And once I was told I had coordination
I went straight to Erez [border crossing] to be informed that they had made a mistake
and that I did not have coordination.
After waiting several hours I
convinced the soldiers to call the COGAT office, and the guy there
told me he had simply forgotten to update my status in the computer,
but I finally got in. I need to leave Israel next week and come back
in because my tourist visa is expiring for Israel, and though
technically, according to the Israeli Supreme Court, this is
unoccupied territory and therefore there is no reason I should need to
have a valid tourist Israel visa the whole time I am here, but in
reality the Israelis said that if it expires they might not let me out
through Erez, and so I would have to wait until Rafah opens to leave through Egypt.
Being in Gaza is great, no one hassles me, I drive around alone with no
problems, Hamas soldiers have never stopped me or asked any questions,
and I walk around at night alone and never feel unsafe.
I cant say that it reminds me of any book or movie, because nothing
can capture the feeling of living in a giant open air prison, and you
really feel it, you feel so cut off here, the siege is so tangible.
Life is as normal as it was before the war, but since 2006 life here
has been very tense. Everyone I have met hates Hamas and feels so
suffocated, and wishes that they would just give up Shalit and stop
this nonsense.
I wanted to write a long entry on my blog about Hamas, what they are
doing here, because it is really horrific, the torture rate is
extremely high, and they have a practice of shooting people in the
knee caps that object to them, it is really awful.
If you can wait I
will sit down this evening and write it, but at the moment at the
office we have tons of work so cant do it now. Have I cried? I have not cried here, tho my eyes have definitely welled up at
certain points.
