RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories, Feb 8, 2024 Agence France Presse: Palestinian culture minister Atef Abu Seif was in Gaza on October 7 for a planned ceremony when the Hamas attack on Israel set off the war and left him trapped for 90 days.
During those painful months, Abu Seif said he witnessed unimaginable death and destruction and lost countless relatives and friends in the coastal territory where he was born.
Now back in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank after he managed to escape the war zone, Abu Seif, 50, talked to AFP about the traumatic experience.
“Gaza is no longer Gaza,” he said. After the war ends, he added, “we will need a new Gaza.”
The minister was in the territory on October 7, which marked Palestinian Heritage Day, for a planned ceremony at Al-Qarara Museum in the southern city of Khan Yunis.
“I wanted to celebrate the launch of Palestinian Heritage Day from Gaza for the first time in history,” he said. But it was not to be.
That Saturday saw Hamas launch their unprecedented attack that resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
The militants also seized around 250 hostages. Israel says 132 remain in Gaza, of whom 29 are believed to have died.
Israel, vowing to eliminate Hamas, launched relentless air strikes and a ground offensive that have killed at least 27,840 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Abu Seif said the toll includes many of his friends and “more than 100 relatives, including my sister-in-law and her children.”
Abu Seif said he spent the first 48 days of the war with his 17-year-old son and family members in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.
But then their home was hit by an Israeli strike, forcing them to flee, like half of Gaza’s population of 2.4 million.
They headed south to Rafah, on the border with Egypt, which Israel now says is the next target of its military campaign.
From his days in Jabalia, Abu Seif has painful memories, including helping pull bodies from under the rubble after a strike hit a relative’s home.
“We were shocked to find that a body which a friend retrieved belonged to his 16-year-old son,” said Abu Seif. “The war in Gaza is ugly.”
Abu Seif said he eventually managed to leave Gaza through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt to return to Ramallah via Jordan.
“I cannot imagine what my neighborhood in the (Jabalia) camp looks like now,” he said.
And what will happen, he said, when he returns one day to Gaza and does “not find half of my friends alive“?
“All the grief of the people of Gaza is postponed... because the sadness has no longer a meaning and is no longer useful in survival.”
Before the war, Abu Seif used to travel to Gaza from Ramallah on Thursdays to link up with his friends for the weekend.
He said now “almost half of them” have been killed.
His ministry says the damage has been immense to Gaza’s cultural heritage.
Around 195 historical buildings, including mosques and churches, and 24 cultural institutes have been damaged or destroyed, it says.
The Al-Qarara Museum, which was surrounded by 5,000-year-old Roman columns, and an ancient Phoenician harbor have also been destroyed, said Abu Seif.
Abu Seif criticized the UN’s cultural agency UNESCO “for keeping silent” on the destruction.
After his return home, Abu Seif urged Palestinian authors and academics living in Gaza to write about their lives there.
The result is a collection of stories from 24 authors called “Writing Behind the Lines.”
One account entitled “The Donkey of Return” tells the story of Gazans forced to use donkey-drawn carts amid dire fuel shortages.
Others relate to the challenges of the internally displaced with titles such as “Seven times displaced” and “We hope to survive.”
“It is important for Gaza’s writers... to write about their lives,” said Abu Seif. “We want the world to read them.”
‘The war is ugly’: Palestinian minister recounts 90 days in Gaza
https://arab.news/y26eg
‘The war is ugly’: Palestinian minister recounts 90 days in Gaza
Gaza’s Rafah border crossing has reopened but few people get through
- Restrictions negotiated by Israeli, Egyptian, Palestinian and international officials meant that only 50 people would be allowed to return to Gaza each day
- Amid confusion around the reopening, the Rafah crossing was closed Friday and Saturday
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: When the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt finally reopened this week, Palestinian officials heralded it as a “window of hope” after two years of war as a fragile ceasefire deal moves forward.
But that hope has been sidetracked by disagreements over who should be allowed through, hourslong delays and Palestinian travelers’ reports of being handcuffed and interrogated by Israeli soldiers.
Far fewer people than expected have crossed in both directions. Restrictions negotiated by Israeli, Egyptian, Palestinian and international officials meant that only 50 people would be allowed to return to Gaza each day and 50 medical patients — along with two companions for each — would be allowed to leave.
But over the first four days of operations, just 36 Palestinians requiring medical care were allowed to leave for Egypt, plus 62 companions, according to United Nations data. Palestinian officials say nearly 20,000 people in Gaza are seeking to leave for medical care that they say is not available in the war-shattered territory.
Amid confusion around the reopening, the Rafah crossing was closed Friday and Saturday.
Hours of questioning
The Rafah crossing is a lifeline for Gaza, providing the only link to the outside world not controlled by Israel. Israel seized it in May 2024, though traffic through the crossing was heavily restricted even before that.
Several women who managed to return to Gaza after its reopening recounted to The Associated Press harsh treatment by Israeli authorities and an Israeli-backed Palestinian armed group, Abu Shabab. A European Union mission and Palestinian officials run the border crossing, and Israel has its screening facility some distance away.
Rana Al-Louh, anxious to return two years after fleeing to Egypt with her wounded sister, said Israeli screeners asked multiple times why she wanted to go back to Gaza during questioning that lasted more than six hours. She said she was blindfolded and handcuffed, an allegation made by others.
“I told them I returned to Palestine because my husband and kids are there,” Al-Louh said. Interrogators told her Gaza belonged to Israel and that “the war would return, that Hamas won’t give up its weapons. I told him I didn’t care, I wanted to return.”
Asked about such reports, Israel’s military replied that “no incidents of inappropriate conduct, mistreatment, apprehensions or confiscation of property by the Israeli security establishment are known.”
The Shin Bet intelligence agency and COGAT, the Israeli military body that handles Palestinian civilian affairs and coordinates the crossings, did not respond to questions about the allegations.
The long questioning Wednesday delayed the return to Gaza of Al-Louh and others until nearly 2 a.m. Thursday.
Later that day, UN human rights officials noted a “consistent pattern of ill-treatment, abuse and humiliation by Israeli military forces.”
“After two years of utter devastation, being able to return to their families and what remains of their homes in safety and dignity is the bare minimum,” Ajith Sunghay, the agency’s human rights chief for the occupied Palestinian territories, said in a statement.
Numbers below targets
Officials who negotiated the Rafah reopening were clear that the early days of operation would be a pilot. If successful, the number of people crossing could increase.
Challenges quickly emerged. On the first day, Monday, Israeli officials said 71 patients and companions were approved to leave Gaza, with 46 Palestinians approved to enter. Inside Gaza, however, organizers with the World Health Organization were able to arrange transportation for only 12 people that day, so other patients stayed behind, according to a person briefed on the operations who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Israeli officials insisted that no Palestinians would be allowed to enter Gaza until all the departures were complete. Then they said that since only 12 people had left Gaza, only 12 could enter, leaving the rest to wait on the Egyptian side of the border overnight, according to the person briefed on the operations.
Crossings picked up on the second day, when 40 people were allowed to leave Gaza and 40 to enter. But delays mounted as many returning travelers had more luggage than set out in the agreement reached by negotiators and items that were forbidden, including cigarettes and water and other liquids like perfume. Each traveler is allowed to carry one mobile phone and a small amount of money if they submit a declaration 24 hours ahead of travel.
Each time a Palestinian was admitted to Egypt, Israeli authorities allowed one more into Gaza, drawing out the process.
The problems continued Wednesday and Thursday, with the numbers allowed to cross declining. The bus carrying Wednesday’s returnees from the crossing did not reach its drop-off location in Gaza until 1:40 a.m. Thursday.
Still, some Palestinians said they were grateful to have made the journey.
As Siham Omran’s return to Gaza stretched into early Thursday, she steadied herself with thoughts of her children and husband, whom she had not seen for 20 months. She said she was exhausted, and stunned by Gaza’s devastation.
“This is a journey of suffering. Being away from home is difficult,” she said. “Thank God we have returned to our country, our homes, and our homeland.”
Now she shares a tent with 15 family members, using her blouse for a pillow.
