Monday 10 February 2025
After the fifth exchange of prisoners two days ago the Israelis withdrew from the Netzarim Corridor which separated the northern half of the Gaza strip from the southern half since the war began. This “corridor” wasn’t just a road. It was a slice of land 75km square and 7km wide, crossing the strip from East to West, from the Naboulsi roundabout to the Wadi Gaza bridge. Following this withdrawal, the Israelis will remain in Gaza in a “buffer zone” one and a half kilometres wide along the border with Israel, and in the south, on the “Philadelphi Corridor” which separates Gaza from Egypt.
Which means that we can now go freely from south to north or from north to south, on foot or by car. This is a great joy for the one and a half million inhabitants of the northern zone, which includes Gaza City. Those who own cars can now use them and be sure they can go and come back. Up till now, we could drive south but not come back. For now, many Gazans who have returned north haven’t moved back there for the moment since they’ve discovered that where their home used to be there is nothing but a wasteland.
And there is still a checkpoint on that north-south road where cars are searched by the agents of a private US security company or by the Qatari-Egyptian committee in charge of monitoring the ceasefire. People whose houses are located on the land where the Netzarim Corridor passes wanted to go home but they couldn’t: the whole area had been flattened by this seismic shock which had destroyed everything. So people’s joy is always tinged with sadness.
THE HOSTAGES WERE BLOCKADED, JUST LIKE THE PALESTINIANS
As for us, we’re not returning home right away, to our tower block in Gaza City. It’s true our friends who stayed behind have cleaned our apartment. But with the bombing of the upper stories, the water reservoir was destroyed. So I’m waiting until a new one is installed. Even if there isn’t any electricity, we could walk up nine flights, but we can’t do without water. Above all, we’ll wait till Sabah gives birth, because here in the south, at least we have the NGO field hospitals.
I’d also like to tell you about this last exchange of prisoners. The Israeli media said they were shocked by their condition, some went so far as to compare them with survivors of the concentration camps. Many Western media repeated these descriptions uncritically. And it’s true that these last hostages didn’t look like those that had been freed previously and who were in good shape. They looked ill. Why did they look like that? Because where they were being held they were subject to the blockade organised by their own army, just like all the Palestinians of Gaza. When there’s nothing to eat, there’s nothing to eat. And their living conditions were perhaps even worse because they had to stay hidden.
So it’s true, their conditions of confinement were tough, but they weren’t tortured, the way the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli hands were and about which we hear much less. The media are busy covering the return of the hostages to their families; much less coverage is devoted to the Palestinians who have spent years in Israel’s gaols. I can talk about those I met in Gaza. Nobody thinks of comparing them with other victims. But I can tell you those people made me think of the shots I’ve seen of Ukrainian hostages freed by the Russians. We saw a lot of those on our TV screens. But still not the Palestinians. Yet like the Ukrainians, those men had lost a lot of weight and bore marks of torture on their hands, their feet and their backs. Many liberated Palestinian prisoners couldn’t find their families, decimated during the war. One of them thought all his relatives had died because the Israelis had lied to him: “We killed your whole family’!” Others can’t walk any more. Still others look like skeletons.
Alongside the long-term prisoners there were others who had been arrested recently. Among them were children under 18 and women. Not to mention those held in what they call administrative detention: the Israelis claim the right to gaol anyone on any pretext without any charges being notified to the accused, who doesn’t have the right to a trial. That can last six months... renewable for life. There are people who have spent four or five years in prison without a trial because they represent “a danger to Israel”. You don’t hear anything at all about those people. But the media go on about the three prisoners, because they are Israelis.
THE GAZA PLAN WILL SOON BE APPLIED TO THE WEST BANK
Thousands of other Palestinians are still rotting away in Israeli prisons. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again : we haven’t got blue eyes and blond hair, but we’re still human! We’ve suffered this occupation for 76 years. In Gaza, not only are we under occupation, but we’re under blockade. We’ve lived through a fifteen-month war with genocide around the clock. Yet the roles are constantly being reversed. The victims are the criminals and the criminals the victims. The occupiers become the occupied and the occupied are the occupiers. The war is stopped but we don’t hear much about Israel’s violations of the ceasefire. In particular the violations of the humanitarian protocol that was supposed to come into force, and the emergency provision of shelter. There were supposed to be tents brought in and pre-fab housing, which are vital because 80 % of the Gaza population have nowhere to live. But Israel won’t let them in.
The tents in the Gaza strip are in very bad condition. Our “villa”, already damaged by the bomb that fell close by, was torn in half by the last storm. The whole installation we had rigged up – the shower, kitchen, etc. – was blown away by the wind, there’s nothing left. Seeing the forecast was for a high wind, like the Mistral in Marseille, I went looking for a place to stay. I found one at Nusseirat. Tens of thousands of Gazans who have lost their makeshift shelters, tarps or tents, had no such luck. Nor do they have the cash to rent a place, since prices have exploded.
Today thousands of families need a roof over their heads, since only 20 % of the Gaza strip has escaped destruction. And the Israelis are still blocking the delivery of tents and pre-fab housing, as well as the necessary materials to build shelters. It’s the same for anything connected with energy: the agreement stipulated that 50 fuel lorries would be allowed through every day but only five or ten are let in. Medical equipment for the hospitals should also arrive. But as I write, there has been none. Consequently, the medical system is still only functioning very patchily.
This is the new Israeli weapon: leave us out in the streets, in miserable conditions, in a non-life, so Trump’s plan can work : so that the day they open the border, everybody will leave. They want every single one of us to resign ourselves to exile for the future of our children; because there are no schools or colleges left, and for better health care, because there are almost no hospitals left either.
That’s why there are so may question marks around the second phase. I think the Israelis are going to extend the first phase several times, long enough to free all their hostages. During that time, they won’t lift the blockade.
But I’m still counting on the Palestinians and our sense of attachment to this land. There will always be at least a minority of Palestinians who’ll remain on this land whatever happens. And I’m referring to all of Palestine. The American-Israeli plan for Gaza will soon be applied to the West Bank. That’s what’s happening right now in Jenin, in Tulkarem, in Nablus. You don’t hear much about that either. And when you do, people don’t realize the actual size of the operation. The West Bank isn’t deemed interesting except when an Israeli is killed or kidnapped, or when an attack against Israel is perpetrated by someone from there. In any event, we’re staying here, even if we have nothing to eat or drink.
Translated by Noël Burch.