Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2011, Pages 26-27

Gaza on the Ground

Letters, Packages en Route to Gaza via Israel Go "Missing"

By Mohammed Omer

Diplomatic correspondence released by WikiLeaks confirms that the Israeli government's continued blockade of Gaza is intentionally punitive and meant to keep Gaza on the "brink of collapse."

As "Democracy Now!" reported on Jan. 5: "According to a November 2008 cable, Israel wanted Gaza's economy to be 'functioning at the lowest level possible consistent with avoiding a humanitarian crisis.' In addition, the WikiLeaks cables reveal the United States offered to transfer $70 million to Gaza in November 2008 in an attempt to ease the economic situation. However, Israeli Major General Amos Gilad refused to allow the transfer, saying that 'the Palestinians should not receive anything.'"

Since June 2007, however, when Hamas thwarted an attempted coup and took control of the Gaza Strip—and 17 months before the leaked cable was written—among the items Israel has denied Palestinians living in Gaza is their daily mail. All mail to and from Palestine now goes through the Israeli Postal Service, where mail is sorted for the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. (Arab states that do not have diplomatic relations with Israel previously sent mail to Gaza via Egypt. This channel, too, has been closed since 2007.) The result has been severe restrictions and delays in delivering letters and packages, including government mail.

A Lonely Outpost

The Rafah post office is eerily quiet. Instead of reflecting its location in the most densely populated area on the planet, the post office looks and feels more like a remote outpost from America's Old West that hasn't seen a courier in months.

A few bags of parcels being sent from Gaza do little more than collect dust, their intended destinations to countries in Europe and the Middle East barely visible. A policeman lounges in the corner, quietly reading his Qur'an, with his Kalashnikov and prayer beads sitting idly by on an old desk. Next to him, the postman brushes away dust as a lone fly buzzes around the light bulb.

You'd hardly know that it's the holiday season, when greeting cards and packages should be overflowing the mail bins, and lines of well-wishers streaming through the door. But this year there are no well-wishers and the bins are empty—except for one. The Gaza International Airport bin bursts with years-old commercial aviation materials, tourism brochures and other non-essentials. The airport has been in ruins for a decade, since Israeli F-16 warplanes bombed it in 2001. True, it doesn't make much sense to continue to collect mail for an international airport with a bombed-out runway, but laws prevent post office personnel from disposing of the out-of-date mail and emptying the bin. So there it sits, collecting dust and reminding the staff of more normal times.

The shortage of goods that is the intended result of Israel's four-year blockade of Gaza has forced many residents to rely on care packages sent by relatives living abroad and purchases made over the Internet. Yet these attempts to live above the "lowest level possible" are only intermittently successful.

Imad Abuel Khair, 44, is one of many Palestinians in Gaza whose life revolves around a post office box. Afflicted with chronic rheumatism, he relies upon medication his brother sends from Italy. Every work day for two months he has arrived at Rafah Post Office, stood at the window and asked postal employee Hani Abu Helal if his package has arrived. Abu Helal's answer never varies: "You don't need to come. We'll call you when the mail arrives."

Abuel Khair is in pain and tired of showing up for nothing—but it's better than sitting home and doing nothing.

While postman Abu Helal speaks with Abuel Khair, Imad Fouda arrives looking for a document he has been expecting for months: a signed copy of his letter of acceptance to a Ph.D. program at a German university. His letter has not arrived, either—and if he does not receive it within the next 60 days, he will not have time to apply for a German visa. Fouda's future hangs in the balance—and he is only one of many scholars in Gaza who continue to face obstacles in sending and receiving academic materials, including books and research documents.

"It takes a very long time for mail to come, if it arrives at all," explains university professor Mohammed Meqdad. "Otherwise we must depend on travelers to bring books and magazines with them."

Disappearing packages, late packages, damaged packages, expired packages—if they're going to or coming from Gaza, notes postman Abu Helal with frustration, "priority stickers are given no priority by Israeli officials."

For those awaiting much-needed medicines and perishable supplies, this means that even if the medicine does arrive, it has expired, or is about to—assuming, that is, that it has not already been destroyed due to inadequate storage conditions while in transit.

Abu Helal's job is mainly delivering bills and cell phones from the Paltel Telephone Company to homes in Rafah. "We deliver internal packages within Gaza in less than 24 hours upon arrival," he explains.

In 2009, the Postal Service of the Palestinian Authority was awarded an International Mail Processing Center Code by the Universal Postal Union. This designation allows the Palestine Postal Service to send and receive mail directly to and from other postal services around the world, rather than having to go through Israel. Unfortunately, such legitimization has not improved the situation, according to postal officials in Ramallah, who note that local deliveries within the West Bank are made promptly, but that Israel still controls international mail into and out of the occupied territories.

Yousef Al Mansi, minister of post and telecommunications with Gaza's de facto Hamas government, says that he and his staff are launching an international campaign to alert concerned postal services worldwide about the situation, in the hope of generating pressure on Israel to let the people of Gaza send and receive mail freely. "The continuous Israeli restriction on the mobility of Gaza's mail is a violation of international and humanitarian law, which protects and guarantees the individual right to send and receive mail," he emphasizes.

The situation in Gaza has created a burden on other nations as well. In August 2010, for example, the Canada Post decided to no longer accept mail destined for the Gaza Strip, as the bulk of it is returned to the sender. The only other place to which letters or packages from Canada cannot be sent is Somalia. Not all Canadians agree with the cessation, however. In a show of solidarity, the Canadian Postal Workers Union announced plans to symbolically deliver mail to Gaza on a Canadian aid ship. The union cited international law guaranteeing the safe delivery of stamped mail—even if the state of Israel refuses to comply.

The delay and non-delivery of mail is detrimental not only to individuals, but to commerce as well. Laments an importer-exporter in Gaza who prefers to remain anonymous, "People lost confidence in us because we simply could not be relied on." He has lost several clients due to the restrictions, he added. While his branches in the West Bank and Jerusalem are able to send and receive parcels, Israel allows only documents into Gaza, and their arrival is unpredictable at best. This has caused tremendous difficulties with inventory management, he says, as well as customer service.

"Timing is vital in our business, and it's frustrating when we can't deliver," the businessman explains. As he finishes speaking, an employee informs him that the passport he sent to Ramallah for renewal never arrived at the Ministry of Interior. The vital document is presumed to be languishing in limbo on the Israeli side of the Erez crossing.

"At times we know that the parcels are just a few hundred meters away, waiting on the decision of an Israeli soldier," he says in frustration.

The mail restrictions have spoiled not only the holiday season for Gaza's Christian and Muslim communities, but birthdays and anniversaries as well. Duwa'a Mustafa of Rafah knows that her cousin in San Francisco always tries to send her dark chocolate, with a few gifts for the family, by regular mail. Of course, by the time she gets the package, the chocolate has melted, making the birthday message illegible.

"Next time, I shall tell him to send my 28th birthday gift a year in advance," she jokes—"and maybe chocolate is not such a good idea any more."

Even though there is not much real work for them to do, however, the staff opens the Rafah Post Office every work day. Like their colleagues around the world, they are deterred by "neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night"—nor, in the case of besieged Gaza, by Israel's vindictive blockade.

Award-winning journalist Mohammed Omer reports on the Gaza Strip, and maintains the Web site. He can be reached at <[email protected]>.

SIDEBAR

Gaza Youth Issue Manifesto for Change

“[The hell with] Hamas. [The hell with] Israel. [The hell with] Fatah. [The hell with] U.N. [The hell with] UNRWA. [The hell with] USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!

“We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F-16s breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this ----ing situation we live in...

“We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal-dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in; sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being portrayed as terrorists, homemade fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on; we are sick and tired of living a sh-tty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.

“There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense dissatisfaction and frustration that will destroy us unless we find a way of channeling this energy into something that can challenge the status quo and give us some kind of hope.

“We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the sh-t out of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives and dreams. During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel wanted to erase us from the face of the Earth. During the last years, Hamas has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behavior and aspirations. Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed. We cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want.

“ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heartaching present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullsh-t, enough incarceration! WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want! We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too much to ask?”

—Gaza Youth Breaks Out, Facebook page

“[The hell with] Hamas. [The hell with] Israel. [The hell with] Fatah. [The hell with] U.N. [The hell with] UNRWA. [The hell with] USA! We, the youth in Gaza, are so fed up with Israel, Hamas, the occupation, the violations of human rights and the indifference of the international community!

“We want to scream and break this wall of silence, injustice and indifference like the Israeli F-16s breaking the wall of sound; scream with all the power in our souls in order to release this immense frustration that consumes us because of this ----ing situation we live in...

“We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal-dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers getting shot in the buffer zone because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in; sick of the wall of shame that separates us from the rest of our country and keeps us imprisoned in a stamp-sized piece of land; sick of being portrayed as terrorists, homemade fanatics with explosives in our pockets and evil in our eyes; sick of the indifference we meet from the international community, the so-called experts in expressing concerns and drafting resolutions but cowards in enforcing anything they agree on; we are sick and tired of living a sh-tty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.

“There is a revolution growing inside of us, an immense dissatisfaction and frustration that will destroy us unless we find a way of channeling this energy into something that can challenge the status quo and give us some kind of hope.

“We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the sh-t out of us, destroying thousands of homes and even more lives and dreams. During the war we got the unmistakable feeling that Israel wanted to erase us from the face of the Earth. During the last years, Hamas has been doing all they can to control our thoughts, behavior and aspirations. Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed. We cannot move as we want, say what we want, do what we want.

“ENOUGH! Enough pain, enough tears, enough suffering, enough control, limitations, unjust justifications, terror, torture, excuses, bombings, sleepless nights, dead civilians, black memories, bleak future, heartaching present, disturbed politics, fanatic politicians, religious bullsh-t, enough incarceration! WE SAY STOP! This is not the future we want! We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace. Is that too much to ask?”

—Gaza Youth Breaks Out, Facebook page