A People Under Siege

A few weeks ago in Egypt, I said goodbye to Treasa Ní Cheannabhain and Saber El Safty of the Galway Children’s Charity Appeal, after being refused entry to Gaza, where I had intended to film the living conditions of Palestinians six months after the Israeli bombing. Treasa and Saber still hoped to get in, but I had run out of time and money, so I returned to Ireland, deeply disappointed that I had been refused. Ten days later, Treasa called to say they had been allowed entry, and that I should come back as soon as possible, as my name was on a list, and I would probably be allowed in (though there were no guarantees).

I booked a flight and flew to Cairo. I took a six-hour taxi ride to El Arish where I slept, and a few hours later was in another taxi on the way to Rafah, 25 kilometres away on the Egyptian border. I didn’t know what to expect, and as we passed through police check-point after police check-point, the thought of being refused again after coming all this way back was something I couldn’t bear.
Five kilometres from the gate, we were stopped by the military. They told us the gate was closed as it was unsafe, and that we had to go back to El Arish. Surrounded by soldiers and secret service, I argued my case, insisting my name was on the gate. They called the gate, and were told my name wasn’t down and that I had to leave. A policeman pushed me back into the taxi, and my driver, who was getting frightened, started to drive off with the door swinging open.
I needed to buy myself some time. I told the driver to stop, pulled my bags out of the car, and told the police I would not leave. They repeated that I could not stay, that it was dangerous, and that there was no way I would get in to Gaza today.
The midday sun was beating down, and I asked if I could sit in the shade. They put me sitting out the back of a tank. There were four tanks at the base, around 20 armed military and 10 secret service. There were a few shops, and a mosque out the back. I called Treasa and Saber, who told me to sit tight. Saber was leaving, and he would speak with the military at the border. I called the Irish Embassy, who said they would call Egyptian Foreign Affairs; if my name was on the gate I should be allowed in.
Some police came over to me, saying I wasn’t safe as the Bedouin would be attacking people. I was aware the military tried to intimidate internationals with Bedouin ‘attack’ stories. On my previous visit, I had met a local Bedouin leader, so I told police that I knew the Bedouin, and had nothing to fear from them. It was the Egyptian military that should be worried, as they had killed three Bedouin in April, and retaliation was inevitable.
After a few hours they softened, even buying me a juice, and offering me some ripe peaches. I sat and waited, in a deck chair in the shade of a tank, hoping something would happen. Giddy soldiers stared, delighted by the distraction of a white woman, and secret service moved me under a tree, with a security man on either side. Locals began to gather. I was attracting a crowd.
The offer of more money had successfully convinced the taxi driver to stay (I needed him to take me to the gate). I learned that Saber had not been allowed out of Gaza, but I didn’t know why. After five hours, a woman from Egyptian Foreign Affairs called to say she had to give a secret name of someone high up to the military that were holding me. The Irish Embassy in Cairo had obviously come through for me, and I was grateful to them for getting me out of there.
I went straight to the gate, and was ushered inside. After an hour and a half, I was allowed through and I entered Gaza.
I immediately relaxed, being greeted with warmth and hospitality. I met Treasa and Saber, who weren’t being allowed to leave. Eventually, Saber was given permission to go, on condition that Treasa went with him. Treasa had been planning to stay, so I could film her. The prospect of being alone there didn’t bother me; it was good to be in Gaza. The whole experience had been so strange and surreal, now I was finally on Palestinian soil, I simply wanted to jump up and down.
I met an old man returning with his injured wife, “Welcome to Gaza,” they said, smiling. Treasa had left, but returned within 20 minutes, saying she had made the military swear on Allah that they would let her out again in five days.
We were staying at the European Hospital. The following morning, we got up early. I realised we had police protection overnight; I wasn’t sure why, but was grateful for it. Our translator, Ahmed, who had perfect English, and looked almost Irish, with fair skin and blue eyes, and our driver, Faris, who I somehow communicated with by speaking English to his Arabic, were waiting for us downstairs.
We visited the North, the most devastated area during the war, and along the way drove so close to Israel I could see tanks on the other side, while I filmed the remains of mosques, cement factories, police stations, schools, septic tanks, government buildings, hospitals, endless ruins of houses. The shattered infrastucture of Gaza was visible everywhere. What looked like a lake was actually raw sewage, which they have no way of treating, and could have devastating effects on the area, come the hot summer months.
In a district called Al–Salaam (which means ‘peace’), I filmed an old man living in a hut he had built from the rubble of his house, which had been destroyed in the January attacks. His son had also been killed. He had spent his life building his house, he said, and his garden. He did not understand why his house had been bombed, nor why the international community continued to do nothing. He didn’t want charity, he said, all he wanted was peace, and for Israel to be held accountable for the January massacre. Then he showed me where he had started to replant his beloved garden.
The refugee camps in the Gaza Strip have one of the highest population densities in the world. In the refugee camp of Jabalia, families of nine and ten live on top of each other in tiny brick rooms. 35,000 refugees settled there in 1948 after the Arab-Israeli war. The Jabalia camp is 1.4km in length and now houses a population of 195,249. When you look up from the cramped maze of narrow alleyways in which they have now lived for more than half a century, one can barely see the sky. These camps were bombed and shelled in January, and visiting with one family, we met a surprisingly cheerful boy of 15, who had lost his legs in the attacks. His eight-year-old brother had been killed, and another brother lost an eye. His mother showed me a video on her phone of her dead eight-year old son. She wanted financial help, to get a wheelchair for her son.
Others, who lost their homes in the January attacks, have been ‘rehoused’ in plastic tents, made unbearable by the searing heat. Families of ten and more are living on three mats and a few blankets: many of them had to wait weeks for supplies, with barely enough food to survive. They have been living like this for five months now. I thought of the tonnes of aid sitting idle in the football stadium at El Arish, blankets and food, refused entry.
We passed vast areas of rubble, bombed playgrounds and destroyed houses. One was strangely beautiful: with its three storeys ruptured into a giant V, it looked like a gentle push would be enough to bring it crashing down. As I filmed, I saw movement under the collapsed roof. I walked around, and peering into what would once have been the front of the house, found an entire family inside. The father was sleeping on a thin mat, two older children were studying for summer exams on cardboard boxes. The father awoke, invited us in, and offered us a brick to sit on. He said they had nowhere else to go, this was their home. Just outside, we could hear machine-gun fire, and nearby, we saw a bomb explode. Was this usual? Yes, Ahmed said, the border was a kilometre away, and Israel was always bombing and shooting around the border, where the tunnels were under continuous attack. A few Palestinians were killed nearly every week. I took some photographs of children, playing in the rubble, oblivious to the bombs falling nearby.
The more we travelled, and talked with people, the more helpless I started to feel. Just some of the questions I was asked: “Why is nobody helping us?”; “Do people know what happened here in January?”; “Where is Obama?”; ”Does anyone care?”
I didn’t know what to say.
The people here have been living under a crippling embargo since Hamas were democratically elected three years previous, which prevents all kinds of aid from reaching them. Unable to receive food, medicine or any other necessary provisions through the official channels, any supplies they do receive reach them through the tunnels, sometimes referred to as ‘the lungs of Gaza’.
It is really hard to imagine what it is like to be allowed no food, no medicine, no gas – but this is the daily reality of Gaza under siege. Everything comes through the tunnels. I knew they were being bombed constantly and I needed someone to bring me to a safe tunnel (ideally) where I would be allowed film.
I eventually found a willing guide. As soon as I reached the entrance of the tunnel, I looked down an endless shaft which must have been 15 metres deep.
I was hoisted down with a makeshift harness and managed to walk under Egypt in the tunnel. I was mostly able to stand up the whole way. This tunnel had taken only six months to build, and had been bombed once before. As I walked back, my guide told me that the tunnel behind this one had collapsed a few days ago and four people were trapped within it.
Later, I interviewed the tunnel builder. They refer to themselves as “siege breakers” and he kept his face covered to remain anonymous: “I am happy that I face death in order to let other people live. The main reason why we work on this tunnel is to break the siege. Every day whilst in the tunnel they risk death. The tunnels are really important to help reduce the suffering of the Palestinians under this brutal siege.
“We consider not only Europe but also the whole world as unjust people, because they are observing us as we are besieged and subjected to death and they stay motionless.
“They are observing this unfair siege, we don’t have anything. We don’t have food, we don’t have milk, we don’t have fuel, We manage to bring in different types of fuel, we also manage to bring in medicine and milk for children, food, meat, cheese, dairy, and chips for children.”
I asked him did he bring animals through the tunnels, as I knew all animals had been killed in January. “Yes, we bring cows, donkeys, sheep through this tunnel” he confirmed. “I have even brought in some animals for the zoo, two crocodiles came through here.’
Having left the tunnel, I went back to find Treasa who was being interviewed by a TV crew. The Hope convoy was meant to arrive into Gaza that day, but was stopped by the Egyptians at Rafah. Over 100 people were trying to get in to Gaza, but only 20 were being let through with some aid.
On my second last day, I met with Dr. Ahmed Yousif, deputy of the Foreign Affairs military and former political advisor to the president Ismael Hanniya.
Dr. Ahmed Yousif has a PhD in journalism and political science, and has written 24 books addressing the issues of political Islam, Arab/Israeli conflict and Muslim relations.
Treasa and I met with him in The House of Wisdom, which is a think tank for Palestinian intellectuals where they try and bridge the gap between the East and West.
I asked him to explain the impact of the January attacks.
“They devastated the Infrastructure in Gaza, terrified the people and weakened the government by hitting hard at all the government buildings. They created total chaos. They hope to topple Hamas rule here in Gaza by agitating the Palestinians against Hamas. But this failed, and Hamas like a phoenix rose again from the ashes. We try to accommodate the people and get them out of this situation with the sanctions and the siege. Unemployment is more than 60 or 70 percent. Most of the people depend on labour, and most of the people are still living in refugee camps, totally depending on humanitarian and medical aid. Imagine living under siege for 3 and a half years now, Gaza has become like an open-air prison. Some people feel like they are living in solitary confinement.”
I asked him to talk about the reality of living under siege.
“You see people really suffering here with illnesses the hospitals can’t handle. The hospitals are like clinics, they have no supplies, and most of the people can’t leave through Egypt or Israel. The situation is getting worse all the time. There is not enough food or medicine. You can’t move. We are living under occupation. Most people for half a century have not seen any sky other then Gaza, If you look to the sky you don’t even see any birds; because of the planes and the drones, even the birds have migrated.”
I asked why he felt the world appears not to recognise the democratically-elected Hamas as a legitimate government, and sees them as terrorists instead.
“We don’t have tanks, we don’t have F16s, so the people have to sacrifice their lives. The Israeli have an excellent propaganda machine, deceiving the world community, so they put Hamas on the terrorist list. But nobody says this is a legitimate struggle and we have to defend ourselves as long as there is occupation, aggression and insurgence. We have to defend ourselves, we have funerals every day, what do you expect us to do? As long as there is occupation, the people have a legitimate right to defend themselves, even with military weapons, and that is what has happened to the people of Palestine.”
“You have a double standard and hypocrisy. You had all kinds of sympathy for the people of South Africa when they were demonstrating against Apartheid, and it should be the same in Palestine.”
As we were leaving, Dr. Ahmed stood at his office window and showed me the many government buildings that had been bombed. It was a sorry sight.

At 2am that night, I was brought to a secret location to meet some Hamas fighters. When I walked into the room, two masked men with guns greeted me. I sat in the room with the camera and waited, and then five more men came into the room and posed with guns as I interviewed them. They were between 19 and 23, and some of them had begun fighting at age 15.
I asked them would they encourage their younger brothers to join, and they told me they absolutely would: “We live a beautiful life, we fight for the freedom of our people and to die as a martyr is a noble death.”
They told me they had been surprised by the January attacks, but they were able to co-ordinate and retaliate straight away. Apparently, it was difficult to communicate as all the phone satellites were bombed, and they had to rely on walkie-talkies. But they felt they reacted well and did the best they could to defend Gaza. These Hamas fighters seemed so very young and ill-equipped, fighting the fourth most powerful army in the world. But apparently people feel that Hamas did defend Palestine, and that Israel retreated: “If Israel comes back we will respond in a much harsher way”
After interviewing them, they took their masks off, and we chatted over tea. Some of them had wives and children, many of them had lost members of their families, and they all resolutely expressed their intention to fight till the grave.
They arranged for me to be dropped back to the hospital, and thanked me for interviewing them: they want to be able to communicate with the outside world.
I fell asleep that night, listening to the bombing in the distance, It seemed like it was becoming more frequent. I was hoping the tunnel-builders and siege-breakers I met were safe.
On our last morning there, Treasa and I woke with a jolt. There was an explosion near where we slept, and we could hear shouting and the screeching of cars. I looked out the window and there was paper and debris all over the street; there were F16s flying overhead.
We didn’t know what was going on; was it a bomb? I grabbed the camera and we both ran downstairs. We met a group of young nurses holding pieces of paper, who explained what had happened.
It was a leaflet drop. Israel had issued a leaflet drop all over Gaza. Chillingly, the leaflet stated that anyone caught within 300 meters of the Israeli Border would be shot dead.
The nurses were about to go into an exam and were not frightened, explaining that this is normal life in Gaza.
They felt there was no hope for their situation.
We were leaving that day and I was starting to feel a deep sense of sadness at the thoughts of leaving Gaza, leaving people behind without knowing what may happen to them over the coming months.
Before we left I visited a paramedics station where I interviewed Dr. Bashar Murad, the head of Emergency Service – Red Crescent. He told me how 13 paramedics were killed, 21 ambulances bombed, and many more paramedics were seriously injured. They felt they were under deliberate attack. I spoke to 8 paramedics and I realised how much they needed to talk about their experiences. I stayed with them for hours as they recounted the stories of horror they’d witnessed. Trying to save people while feeling they could be killed at any moment. The worst part was collecting the bodies and body parts of the many children who were massacred. Dealing with the illegal weaponry that Israel used such as DIME, Flachette shells and white phosphorous, they lost many people that could have been saved.
Just before we left, I wanted to film the El Dayah family home in the Al-Zaytoon area. While they were asleep in their beds, 22 members of this family were killed – 12 children and four women. The force of the bomb blew the face off every neighbouring house, and nine of the bodies were never found. A neighbour told me how they searched through the rubble by hand, trying to find the dead. He found the body of a little girl who was buried up to her neck (the picture of the girl is the reason I went to this house). Afterwards, Israel admitted the attack was ‘a mistake’.
We left Gaza that afternoon, not knowing when we would ever get back in. It felt like leaving a prison, saying goodbye to Ahmed, Faris, and other Palestinians we’d met. It was like leaving people behind in a prison, a prison I hope I can get into again.