Warm welcomes to witness Gaza’s latest pounding
Even from the air my Israeli fellow passengers in the incoming flight to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport are quick to let you know things are not normal – even in this most abnormal of countries.
The man next to me points out of the window: “Look at that! Wow! Where are all the planes?”
To my eye, the airport looks busy enough, but I am soon put right, and inside the terminal building there’s a buzz about cancelled incoming flights. In the taxi, the driver tells me I must be crazy going to Gaza, until I point out that I’ve come from northern Syria.
On the main road south a pleasing and immaculate dual carriageway – except there are few vehicles, even for a Friday afternoon. Instead, there are ponderous convoys of low-load transporters bearing Israeli tanks towards Gaza. They all bear the star of David flag and are marked up with the recognition symbols of a planned assault.
Mortar rounds
Closer to the strip itself, many are already dug in, barrels pointing towards what has been for so long one of the more bombarded areas of our planet.
Closer to the Erez crossing, you can see the surveillance blimps hanging in the sky to look in upon the citizens of Gaza who have already endured a pounding in recent days.
The thump of shells and the short explosions of mortar rounds interrupt the afternoon here, as Israeli soldiers stop at the motorway café near the frontier crossing to grab some more interesting food than their military rations.
Overhead, the white circles in the sky, trails left by the jets bombing the Gaza Strip below. It is not one-way traffic, of course. Several times sirens sound and we are told to take cover.
After a few hours, as the sun goes down and we are giving up hope of being able to cross, a sudden fury as the young woman from the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) comes into the café: “OK, guys. Pack up. I’m sorry to hurry you but you can cross if you come now. I am so sorry to inconvenience you like this.”
They are almost painful in their professionally polished manners when it comes to the international press corps.
Unsettling drive
On into the grim concrete of the final Israeli checkpoint. They politely stamp a piece of paper – never your passport. If they did, it would be contaminated for travel around much of this troubled region.
You sign a waiver form letting you know in no uncertain terms that you are entering an area of conflict and the Israeli state can take no responsibility for what happens to you.
We push our trolley laden with TV equipment. The last Israeli official slams the heavy metal gate shut behind us, and we enter a long, bleak, fenced tunnel of wire and concrete, with signs every few feet which simply say “Gaza this way”.
There then follows at least a half-mile haul across no-man’s land, and it is dark. We are alone. We are the last.
The IDF say they will reopen this crossing on Sunday morning, but there is no guarantee of that.
Mercifully, a flash of headlights, and our driver has come to meet us in the darkness. There then follows an unsettling 15-minute drive, in darkness, with several kinds of explosions near and far.
Finally, the relief of seeing another car on the road and the first buildings, and at last some sense of what passes for security.
In the hotel, the warmest of welcomes. They clearly want us here in Gaza, and you have to say that, unlike Operation Cast Lead in 2008, the Israelis recognise their responsibility for allowing the international press to witness what is, or is not, about to happen to this poor and battered place.
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