Ah, more Pali tales of woe...
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AFP) - Seventy-year-old Naim Ahjazi needs just a half-hour -- 45 minutes at most -- to run across the border to Egypt and pick up the desperately-needed farm supplies that he paid for last week. But the Hamas gunmen standing guard at the frontier are not moved -- after nearly two weeks of unfettered access between Gaza and Egypt, the border is shut again.
Show's over. Nuthin to see here. Move it along...INFIDEL!!!
"I paid for the supplies, but the shop was closed all day yesterday so I couldn't pick them up," says Ahjazi, his tanned face etched with despair™ and resignation as he looks over at the border just metres away.
Geez, so close...yet so far away...
"I told them that I just needed a half hour or 45 minutes to get the stuff that I paid for. But they said no because I don't have an Egyptian ID."
Perhaps you should've shown them some ID with Mr. Jackson's or General Grant's picture on it?
So the nearly 100 dollars (65 euros) worth of fertiliser and other farm supplies -- a small fortune for a farmer in impoverished and isolated Gaza -- remains on the other side of the frontier, out of reach.
Awwwwww...looks like ya got screwed, pops. Oh, well, maybe the next time they blow it. Which could be tomorrow. I'd save my receipt...
Egyptian and Hamas forces strung barbed wire and erected metal barriers across the last two gaps in the frontier, following a reported agreement on restoring order to the border that was transformed into a chaotic marketplace over the past 11 days. Only people returning home were allowed over the border, but with hundreds still jostling to try to get across, the frontier areas dissolved into hectic scenes of pushing, shoving and yelling.
Wow. Can ya believe that...
"Everyone needs to leave immediately! If you're not Egyptian, you've got to leave now!" the armed Hamas men yelled at the crowd, every once in a while raising their batons to push the people back. "The people knew we were going to close it," one Hamas gunman told AFP, declining to provide his name. "It has been open for almost two weeks and they have the same things on both sides of the border."
So that should solve the "humanitarian crisis™" thingy for at least a couple of weeks, right, fearsome unnamed Hamas gunman?
But like the hundreds milling at the frontier where nearly half of Gaza's 1.5 million population has crossed since militants blew it open on January 23, Ahjazi refuses to leave, hoping against all odds that can cross just once more.
...or just twice more, or just seven or eight or twenty or sixty times more...
"If they just gave us 48 hours (warning), we could get everything we need and leave," he says. "But they didn't tell anyone they were closing it."
Suuuuuurpriiiiise surrrprise surprise!
The border breach was an unfamiliar blast of freedom for Gazans -- residents of one of the world's most densely-populated places that has been the object of ever-increasing border restrictions from Israel since the start of the second Palestinian uprising in September 2000.
Blast? That's an interesting choice of words. Guess it just popped into his head...
The Rafah crossing -- Gaza's only frontier that bypasses Israel -- has been closed nearly continuously since militants seized an Israeli soldier in a deadly raid in June 2006. Palestinians queing at the now-sealed gaps in the barrier were hoping it would open just one last time.
...or just twice more, or just seven or eight or twenty or sixty times more...
"I just wanted to go and buy a few more thing for the house," says Nail Agha, 29. "There is no work here. If it stays closed, I'm just going to have to sit around."
Sure, Nail, I'll bet that'll be a real stretch for ya.
Unemployed father-of-four Naim al-Borno, 38, lives in the poor Shati refugee camp in Gaza City. Over the past week or so, he crossed into Egypt buying goats to resell on the Gazan side for a profit of 20 to 30 dollars a head."I work in a factory that has been open for only three months in the last two years," he said. "I had to sell my wife's jewellery to buy food."
At first, she was mouthy about it, but I showed her my gallon jug of "honor acid" and then she got right with the program...
"If they close the crossing for good, I'll have to go live under a tree. There is nothing here, no work."
Consider it your contribution to the fight against Global Warming, Naim. Maybe the UNRWA will get you a subscription to "Tree Living " magazine to help you cope...
Egyptian Umm Wael, 48, married a Palestinian and has lived in the Gazan part of Rafah for years. She rushed across the border when the barriers fell to see dozens of her relatives on the other side. "I went and saw my family the first day after they opened the border," she said, a smile lighting up her face at the memory. "But I really wanted to see them one more time."
...or just twice more, or just seven or eight or twenty or sixty times more...
"The border should really be open," she says. "But God bless them for opening it and God bless the Egyptians for letting us in. We had to breathe a little."
That's okay, Umm. Maybe next time the folks'll head on up to Gaza to see you instead. Or...maybe not.