My initial intent was to spend two, maybe three days in Gaza, which was what I had originally told Malik. But due to a series of circumstances, some intentional some not, I continued adjourning my departure for almost two weeks, where by the seventh day Malik officially announced that he had kidnapped me. The first postponement was due to Alan Johnson's possible release. Hamas had given the Dagmoush family (proclaiming itself the "Army of Islam," although all the Gazans with whom I spoke insisted they were "not Islam," had nothing to do with Islam, and referred to them strictly as the Dagmoush family) until the upcoming Monday to release him. This was supposedly the family's third and final deadline, and if they hadn't released him by then security forces were going to start killing Dagmoush family members. So I decided to stay until then to see what would become of the caveat. But as it turned out, by midday on Sunday gunfights had broken out between the Dagmoush family and the Deraui family, leaving five dead. Apparently according to Malik and his friends the Dagmoush's weren't extremely popular in Gaza. Malik said they were involved in gun and drug trades, of course in kidnappings, and in generally terrorizing the public. Now, the fact that it was morally deplorable aside, much like the president's so-called 'liberation' or Custer's glorious 'Hurrah, boys! We've got them!', I think the Dagmoush family had no idea what it was getting itself into by kidnapping Johnson. Not only was the family hated by rival families, but it also aggravated Hamas so much that holding Johnson became its only insurance of protection. Ironically Johnson was the Dagmoush's sole bargaining chip for its own safety.

So I spent the next few nights with Malik's friend Khalid, who lived in the northern Gaza Strip about a kilometer from the separation wall with Israel. From Gaza City we drove north towards Erez then turned off the main street and slowly continued along a winding dirt road navigating around numerous bomb craters from Israeli air attacks and sea bombardments. It was late in the evening when we arrived at the apartment. Khalid introduced me to his wife, brother, daughter and three sons. Khalid' wife prepared a meal for us: fried fish, fish kofta, soup, much like clam chowder if you replace the clams with nuts, and 7-up as the beverage. She sat patiently at the table as Khalid, his brother and I ate.

After supper, while Khalid' wife was cleaning up, Khalid and his brother talked with me about their life under occupation. His brother began by showing me the scars across his body. He had been shot four times by Israeli forces: once through the leg, where the entry and exit wounds were marked with red, discolored depressions; once through the left arm; once in the back, where I think the bullet is still buried and once through the left side of his belly.

After he showed me the scars he sat up and looked at me, like he wanted a response. But I didn't know how to respond to something like that. I had no idea what to say: "bummer." "Sorry dude." "The Israelis will pay for this! Those bastards!" "Looks like God loves your brother more than he does you" (Khalid has never been shot), "Yeah, I've been there." Finally I calmly said to him, "I'm sorry. That's horrible," which I think was enough.

We spoke further and Khalid told me about his sister's daughter who had lived next door. She died two years ago from a heart attack during an Israeli bombardment. And again, all I knew to do was sit and listen. Khalid spoke of an incursion where Israeli forces broke into his home in the middle of the night and blindfolded his family and bound their hands. They were all led to a field outside the apartment complex. There, still blindfolded, the soldiers demanded his name. When he gave it to them, they began yelling at him, accusing him of being with Hamas. "You are with Hamas! Don't lie to me. You are Hamas," they yelled at Khalid. They threw him to the ground, hitting him while he continued denying it, pleading with them to stop. Finally, they were assured that he wasn't. So when Khalid was able to crawl back up to his knees the soldiers then accused him of being with Fatah and again tried to beat a confession out of him. Eventually, when the soldiers became either convinced that they weren't members of either movement or were bored of the inquisition, they released the entire family making no arrests.

Throughout our conversation Khalid repeatedly expressed to me how urgently he and his family needed to escape Gaza, how his children often couldn't sleep at night, how difficult it was trying to protect his family from the violence around them, how impossible it was to do so, and how stressful life was to him and his family. And it should be noted, he was very well off compared to most Gazans, co-owning a mobile phone repair business. Khalid believed his best shot was to escape to Norway.

That night Khalid' wife slept in her parents' apartment above us while Khalid, the children and I slept at his place. Much of the extended family lived there in the same apartment complex.

I should mention here that literally everyone, not figuratively everyone, with whom I spoke, with the exception of Khaled Abu Hilal and Malik was desperate to get out of Gaza (Malik said he wouldn't leave because he had to care for his mother, as his father had died and his brother was psychologically impaired). The Strip really was essentially a prison. Even with an open border it was extremely difficult to attain permission to leave. On numerous occasions, people asked where I worked in Sweden and if I could send them an invitation through it to obtain a work visa. They asked me how they could file for asylum in Sweden. They asked how they could send their children abroad. They asked what I could do to get them out. One of the Christians I spoke with asked if I could send him whiskey upon my return, as Gaza was then completely dry. Gaza it seemed was beyond repair, and the only thing to do was get the hell out. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of speaking with Gazans for me was being asked how to immigrate and if I could assist in doing so. It was spending time with people, talking with them, laughing, playing cards, smoking, even dancing with them, knowing that they were trapped in Gaza, not due to financial burdens but because they physically were not allowed to leave, while I could checkout almost whenever I wished and then having to speak with them about what I believed to be the impossibility of leaving the Strip. I don't think I handled it in the most responsible fashion, taking a cowards way out, choosing to be dumb rather than honest. While in my mind I wanted to tell them that I thought they were fucked and the chances of them escaping were extremely slim, I told them that I didn't know the technicalities of immigrating to Sweden but that they might be able to find out on the internet.

Two days later, I awoke at 6:30 to what sounded like tank fire. Because we were so close to the border I assumed that the Israelis had made an incursion somewhere. As the shelling continued I sat up and looked out the window, but saw nothing. Khalid' appeared to still be sleeping and there weren't any signs of commotion outside and so with no one overly concerned, I concluded that either it was safe or that we were not in a position to make ourselves safer. We had stayed up until 3:30 the night before so I turned over and went back to sleep. Later in the day Khalid received a text saying that the shelling was nothing and there wasn't an actual target that the Israelis were firing on. He said maybe they were shooting at a truck on the road or something insignificant. But no one was killed and no buildings were damaged.

That was good, right? No, I thought that was nonsense. I was relieved that no one was killed in shelling to be sure, but I suddenly became exacerbated by the act of essentially randomly firing into Gaza. I took enough issue with air-strikes and assassinations, but at least in those instances a tangible foreseeable goal existed, a physical target: destroy this building, take this person's life, and so on. But here there was no target or if there was, it wasn't a target worth the effort of hitting or killing. In this case, simply firing shells into the Strip for a while was both the action and a sufficient outcome of that action, like terrorism without any desired political objective, simply instilling trepidation into the population. But, I guess I shouldn't be too critical; after all it's good business.

The following evening Khalid took me to the main Gaza hospital to visit a friend Mohamed Lamoud, 28, from Japallia camp, who had been burned in a fire during the infighting the week before. Two of Mohamed's close friends were killed in the same fire. As we drove into the parking lot I saw 'Free Alan' posters covering the hospital wall. We entered the building, walked up the stairs, down the hall and entered Mohamed's room. On the floor lay a few bottles of water, a canister of tea and carton of fruit juice. The white paint on the walls was chipping away. No medical equipment, but the room had a small fan and a table with pitas and humus. On the sides of the bed were small stickers of so-called "martyrs."

Khalid approached Mohamed lying on the bed, greeted him and shook his hand. I approached, greeted him and offered my hand but waited until he took mine to shake. Both of his arms were wrapped from shoulder to fingertips in bandages, and I didn't think giving him a warm, friendly, maybe two-handed firm real-man's handshake was going convince him of my greatness.

Mohamed was wearing boxer shorts and a beater. Both legs were fully wrapped, leaving his feet exposed with sever burns. Thick yellow pus had crusted under his eyes, around and inside his ears and covered his lips. In the enduring heat, the evening air was thick with the smell of old gauze, sweat and rotted skin. Khalid sat me on a large cushioned chair beside Mohamed while taking the rickety wooden stool for himself. They talked for around 20 minutes. Khalid told jokes while Mohamed tried not to laugh. I have no idea what they were talking about but was surprised by how upbeat and playful the conversation was considering the circumstance.

Eventually we said our farewells to Mohamed and left the hospital. We hopped in the car and headed out of the parking lot. On our way to Khalid' mobile phone shop we hear of an attack on the radio. The Israelis had just assassinated someone on Nasser Street. We turned around to pickup Malik about a half a kilometer away and quickly drove to the scene.

A large crowd, almost exclusively male with ages ranging from about seven to really old, had already gathered surrounding a burned-out car and we started asking what had happened there. I found out that the Israelis had assassinated Hussein Haurd of the al-Quds Brigades and seriously injured two others who had just been taken to the hospital. Witnesses said, while Haurd was driving an apache helicopter fired two missiles at his car and then covered it with heavy machinegun fire.

I had my camera with me so Malik asked someone from the Hamas security force that had just arrived if it could stand on his truck for a better photo angle. I jumped into the load and took a few pictures, but realized the angle wasn't very exceptional so I climbed down and tried to make my way through the crowd. A larger man saw me there and, I assume believing that I was with the press, physically cleared a path through the crowd for me. When we reached the car, he pointed down at the blood and carnage that was still left on the sidewalk and gestured for me to take a photograph. Seeming extremely concerned that I see everything he then took me on a little personal tour of the scene pointing out the many puddles of blood and pieces of debris in the area. Then he brought me back to the car. Most of the left front and the inside had been blown out. The roof had partially collapsed and it, along with the front of the car was saturated with thick bullet holes. Peering inside, the passenger seat was mangled beyond distinction. Blood was splattered against the walls and the foam insides of the seat cushions. All the windows were smashed out, the right door was blown off and a large streaks of blood spread across the asphalt. I took a few more pictures, none of which turned out.

I left the crowd and found Malik and Khalid, who were chatting near Khalid' car. They asked if I was ready to go. I said yes. And I suddenly felt this overwhelming sensation of emptiness, and not in the Sunyata sense, a feeling that I really didn't need to be there at the assassination scene anymore. I was standing where a man had just been killed and taking pictures of it. Since I wasn't going to write a story and send it to a newspaper, why did I feel the need to take photographs? For the purposes of what? What was I going to do with this experience? Perhaps it was just me being inherently selfish and wanting to see what happens and how people react after someone is murdered. Maybe I just wanted to tell this story. I don't know, but regardless I didn't have the desire to stay any longer so we headed to Khalid' work.   

I felt strange about Malik and Khalid's behavior. Perhaps I felt strange about my own behavior as well. I never had the sensation before and would not feel it again, but it was as if I was a tourist and they were taking me on a Gaza Adventure: visit the impoverished communities, play with weapons, see a war stricken city, live with an authentic Gazan, look at the suffering in the hospitals, and now explore an assassination scene. Food, accommodation and transpiration provided. I think it was a mixture of how unconcerned they were with the assassination and how unconnected I was to the people at the scene. For Malik and Khalid, this was normal in Gaza and they certainly wouldn't have bothered to come if I wasn't there. And I was a witness, an observer, not a participant. I didn't help anyone push the car to the side of the road. I didn't help clean up. I just watched passively. It was as if I was caught in a grotesquely warped, morbidly deranged Tim Burton's Birthright Israel tour.

But again, this feeling only manifested itself once. Although I was shown some 'sights' of Gaza, for the most part I felt very connected and involved with Malik and Khalid's daily life: talking with friends, playing cards, playing with Khalid' children, hanging out at work, more hanging out at work, going swimming, and so on.

Fighting between the Dagmoush and Deraui families continued the following day and Hamas didn't make good on its threat to kill Dagmoush family members. But Malik's friend was getting married in two days and he invited me to the groom's party the day prior so I decided to say a while longer.

The following evening, after visiting more of Malik's friends, smoking nargula, talking, et al, we drove to the groom's apartment where I learned there were in fact two parties taking place. In the apartment the women from both families were together. As we walked upstairs, I felt stimulatingly dirty as I snuck a peak through the window to see what they were doing.  I believe, like the men, they spent the night dancing well into the early morning hours. The men held their party on the top floor of the apartment, which wasn't fully constructed yet. Essentially it was just a cement frame, no doors, no windows, no lights installed, just cement walls with random electrical wiring protruding in various places.

There was no food or water when we first arrived. Small speakers were playing music from a computer in the corner, so Malik offered up his large stereo speaker. A few minutes later he returned with it, and plugged it into the computer. There was some decoration there: a few lights were brought up, a camera was filming, and one Palestine and two Fatah flags were hung on the wall.

We spent the night dancing relentlessly to Arab pop music. Although it was late at night, the temperature was swelteringly, and the 30-some bodies there didn't help. Not very good at gauging, but I think it was probably at least 29 Celsius, enough to get delirious after a while.

Now, although I bask myself in its essence, I don't want to appear as being cavalier but I think at the party I may have gotten as much attention as the groom. No one would allow me sit down and rest or even take a nargula break. Every time I tried someone would grab my hand and drag me back on the dance floor. Malik made it his personal duty to ensure that I dance with all the major characters: the groom, the groom's brother and father, the bride's father and so on. I tell you it was a spectacle to see: a crazy cracker grinning like an idiot surrounded by all these enthusiastic Palestinians, flapping his arms, trying to let them flow with the beat in that smooth, causal style that only cool kids or Arabs can. Every once in a while someone would sneak up behind me and hoist me onto his shoulders and I found myself dancing with some little five-year-old on someone else's shoulders. And even that five-year-old could dance better than me.

It seemed as if the party was never going to end and on a number of occasions I felt like I was going to pass out from a lack of liquids in my body, which was now soaked into my shirt and jeans. Exhausting, unyielding, intense and extremely fun, it could only be described as a religious experience.

The following day I packed my bag and Malik and I set out for Erez. We had heard earlier that the Israelis had made a few incursions in the south, but thus far the north was calm. About a kilometer from the border we came across a number of cars, taxis and an ambulance pulled over on the side of the road. People were standing around, looking down the road towards the crossing. I looked in that direction and saw nothing unusual, just the road, a street sign above it, the fields, bombed out buildings and the crossing terminal. I asked Malik what was going on and he told me the Israelis had come. I looked towards the crossing again, this time to see a Merkava silently parked in the middle of the road with its turret cannon pointing directly at us.

I should say here, by that time I was fairly used to having guns pointed at me, and can't say that I was comfortable with it, but I was at least to the point where it was expected. A tank on the other hand was something else entirely. Really, a death machine. They don't even need to aim those things; just firing in my general direction would send me so far into the nasties of the unknown that not even three heads of garlic could revive me. I suddenly had a new found respect for the young Palestinian boys who sand in front of those things throwing rocks.  

Now either I was grossly stupid and unobservant or the tanks can hide better than the WMDs, which I belligerently and obdurately maintain exist, though perhaps funded, manufactured and owned by another country. So I'm willing to meet the tanks half way on this one, and say that they're pretty good and I'm not fully stupid. But I couldn't believe that I looked directly at it, parked in the middle of the road and didn't notice it. I reached for my camera but Malik told me not to take pictures and to put it away. I had no idea if he was kidding or not, but I didn't listen.

We approached one of the taxis where two British reporters, the first crackers I had seen since the Khaled Abu Hilal speech, were on their phones trying to figure out what was going on. As they talked I noticed another Merkava making its way across the hills to our left towards Gaza city and disappear over the horizon.

The reporters informed us that the Israelis had made an incursion through the Karni crossing further to the south and had killed a number of people. The borders were closed and no one could get in or out of the Strip until at least until 16:00 the next day. Malik looked at me and said laughing, "Bain Allah. Ryan, now you are a real Gaza citizen."

As we were leaving to return to Gaza City, an elderly couple that apparently made it through Erez just before it closed was walking up the road. And I saw perhaps the most jaw-dropping image throughout my time in Gaza: as they grappled with their luggage, slowly struggling along the pavement, maneuvering around roadblocks and bits of debris in our direction where the taxis were parked, as the Erez parking lot was also closed, the Merkava's turret gun meticulously followed them as they passed it and constantly keeping its aim on the couple as they approached. "You've got to be shitting me," I said as I climbed into the car.

The following day, hoping that the border would be opened again we checked the news. The Israelis had already made another incursion killing 13 people so far. "A real Gaza citizen," Malik said again to me smiling. So with no chance of escape, Malik and I visited the wedding and then headed for the beach.

The following day we made another attempt to get to Erez. As we approached the border we were stopped in the same place we were two days prior. Malik asked a man in a Red Crescent ambulance what the deal was. As it turned out, the border was in fact open, but vehicles were not allowed on the road leading up to it. So I grabbed my bag from the car, profusely thanked Malik for all his hospitality and headed towards the border.

Now the terminal to enter Gaza was a sensual butterfly-kick through the backwaters of nitrous ecstasy compared to the nonsense that lay ahead. It took hours of ridiculousness and frustration to get through. I entered the corridor and walked to the end were I reached the first metal gate. There, I had to hold my passport up between the metal bars towards a camera fixed on the wall ahead of me. I stood for about twenty minutes until someone, somewhere in the terminal saw me and buzzed me through. But the gate only got me to the waiting lines, which at the time were completely empty, to enter the actual terminal building. There, outside the building I waited again holding my passport up to another camera for another ten minutes or so, when upon I heard a gravelly voice from a loudspeaker say, "where are you from?" "Sweee, oh shhh" I said trailing off. "The US and A" and I held my passport closer to the camera. "Go to the fourth door," the voice instructed. I turned around and saw one of the maybe six thick steal doors slowly begin opening. I put on my backpack and walked inside to find myself standing in front of another gate. As I approached, the voice, which I think was the same as the previous one said, "Where are you from?"

"I said the USA."

"What is in your bag?"

            "Clothes, a camera, books, a computer…."

"Please show me."

"Okay." So I took out the first thing in my bag, a sandal, and held it in the air looking around for where the camera might be.

"I can see it," the voice said.

Then I took out a t-shirt, jeans, computer and so on. Eventually the voice, the unseen camera and I made it through the entire bag and I was permitted through the gate. Then I was directed into another room by the voice where I saw my first human being. He was there to take all the contents of my bag and put them on trays, which then entered a scanner. It sounded easy enough, until some of the trays started being sent back. A new voice from a loudspeaker near the man's chair rang out giving him instructions. He took my tape-recorder form one of the rejected trays and held it in front of this small black half-sphere mounted next to his post. The voice instructed again, and he held the tape-recorder closer. Then he opened the tape compartment and showed the inside to the sphere. After further instruction he did the same with the battery compartment. Then he put it on the tray and sent it in again.

They went through the same ordeal with my camera, where the man had to take out the battery and the memory card and show them to the black sphere. And then my computer. But when the sphere discovered the clock that the groom had given to me as a gift and the Fatah al-Yasser banner, the voice became irascible. Dealing with the clock probably took about 20 minutes alone. The man would send it into the machine; after about half a minute it would be rejected and the man would be instructed to show the sphere a particular part of the clock; the man would then send the clock back into the machine and the cycle would repeat itself. While I was waiting, two international photographers from ABC came through. For a reason unknown to me, the voice and the sphere didn't seem to take issue with their cameras and gear, which were approved by the voice and accepted into the scanning machine almost immediately.

Finally all my items were allowed into the machine and I was permitted through a set of clear plastic doors. There, in a cue the two press members and I waited for a few minutes. Then, one at a time a new voice instructed us to enter a glass or perhaps clear plastic pod and raise our hands. When we did so, a small machine quickly circled us and the exit doors in front opened into a waiting area.

There we sat for another 20 minutes, eventually being instructed to enter another room where the contents of our bags were sitting on a table still laid out on the trays. There, more security guards searched through our stuff, this time with those sticks with the cloth at the end, that I think were supposed to detect explosive materials. When they were finished we repacked our bags and headed for passport control. Remembering my last passport control ordeal on my way into Gaza, fearing anther hour wait while they looked me up on their computers and thoroughly irritated by the crossing process thus far, with chafed anticipation the except began repeating itself in the back of my mind, at first very softly but slowly gaining momentum getting louder and louder mercilessly repeating, "Of all men else I have avoided thee. Of all men else I have avoided thee. Of all men else I have avoided thee you bastards. Of all men else I have avoided thee."

And we waited longer. And my anxiety heightened. By this time, I was ready to go. Although there were clearly personnel on the other side of the passport control booths, the guards weren't ready just yet to let us through. And so we waited, more.

By the time one of the booths was opened, my anxiety had transformed into childish sarcastic spite, which I knew wasn't the best way of dealing with these characters, but I was done, finished, having been so for a long time and needed to have some fun, needed to have some type of revenge. I knew they had to let me through eventually. They weren't going to send me back into Gaza, so why not take the piss out of it? I walked up to the booth and handed the woman my passport.

"What were you doing in Gaza?" she asked with an American accent.

"Oh, you know, just checking it out, seeing what it's like there, eatin' the food, swimming at the beach, talking to people, smoking nargula, taking advantage of the low prices, the usual," I responded in that incredibly annoying, arrogant California surfer accent.

"Just checking it out? Gaza is very dangerous."

"I know. That's why I wanted to go man. I went for the thrill. I went because it's dangerous."

"You know, it's really stupid to go to Gaza, especially by yourself. They'll kill you there. You're lucky you weren't kidnapped."

"No man. I just love livin' on the edge. I know it's dangerous. And when I got permission from the hospital, I couldn't pass up the opportunity. Could you?" I said, immediately regretting asking my last question. I was sure she could.

We continued on like this for a long time. I couldn't tell if she was annoyed at me for being a jackass or amused by my stupidity, but she did seem intrigued to talk, which was just fine by me. But finally she had enough. Smiling, she asked, "How long were you there?"

"Doesn't it show on the passport stamp? About two weeks, right?"

She stamped my passport and handed it back and I was out, free, with my privilege exercised to its fullest. My phone now had reception, I could go where I pleased and there was beer.

Driving 110km/hr back to Jerusalem, grappling with the impending objectification of that which I came to feel close with I found myself at a loss for words fearing both serving the existence and being served by the existence. When pedantic frames amalgamated with a ductile ich the cerebral manifestation of volition formulated hopefully depicting a useful mental construction. I wish I were better at expressing the intensity and immediacy of life in Gaza but this will have to suffice. Don't let the bells end.

streets of Gaza

assassination

fishing

an uncertain existence

God's Chariot: 1 Aging couple: 0

At about 11:00 on my first night in Gaza just as I thought Malik and I were preparing for bed, he invited a number of neighbors over for nargula and tea. We took stools, chairs and the water pipe and brought them outside his apartment complex. The street was almost completely vacant and rather dark as there were few streetlights. About four of Malik's friends came by and we began smoking and talking, which was to become a least a tri-daily ritual. Malik pointed to the nearest corner on our left where a watermelon stand stood and said that the week before gunfights had taken place there. Malik didn't work that week, because conditions were so extreme that the U.N. had suspended its activities. Rather, he and his friends passed the time sitting there and smoking nargula. "Here or inside?" I asked. "Here," he said pointing down. I asked if it was dangerous and why they didn't sit inside. He told me something to the extent of that you have to live your life, you can't be a prisoner in your own home. The irony was almost comical. Furthermore, his apartment was much hotter than outside and regardless no one was targeting him anyway.

Then Malik introduced me to a friend of his who was working security for Fatah. As we continued talking, the man, maybe 19 or 20 took out a semiautomatic handgun from under his shirt and started playing around with it. Malik explained to me that because he was Fatah, he could no longer take his guns out in public. "What a pity, how unjust," I thought.

"If Hamas sees him with a gun, they will take it away," he said.

"Won't they shoot him?"

"No, just take it away."

Fairly cautious, frequently looking over his shoulder, the man continued playing with the gun, pulling back the hammer, taking the magazine in and out, pulling the trigger and fiddling with the safety. Every once and a while a car would pass and the man would tuck the gun in his lap. Pointing at the car after it would pass he would say, "They are Hamas."

During our conversation, another of Malik's friends tried to explain to me that Gaza has had two major problems: holding out his right hand he said "security" and holding out his left he said "economy," as if they were two unrelated issues. Optimistically, he said that now that security was okay Gazans had only the economy to deal with. I asked if he thought there was a correlation between the economy and security, that the Gaza Strip was dangerous in part because it was impoverished (It's said often, and unfortunately it's true, that it's easier to pick up a gun than it is to get a job in Gaza). He reiterated again that security wasn't a problem anymore but the economy was and therefore they were unrelated.

"Do you think this calm is actually going to last here?" I asked.

"Insha'allah."

"It's nice to hope, but really, why, for example, do you think it's more safe in the West Bank than it is in Gaza? Don't you think it has something to do with a stronger economy and infrastructure in the West Bank?"

"The West Bank is dangerous too."

"Yes, but there weren't gunfights leaving 150 people dead in the West Bank last week." (While there were a few incidents, they were minute, incomparable to what happened in Gaza)

"I don't know. I think there was fighting in the West Bank," he said.

Now, the general atmosphere outside Malik's apartment that night was hopeful and there seemed to be a common understanding that things would substantially improve now that the fighting had stopped. So I dropped the issue. I felt as if they either didn't know or didn't acknowledge the impact of Israeli and international opinion of a Hamas run Gaza and how that was going to effect conditions here, regardless of the economic crisis. But considering what happened the week before, I guess anything was an improvement and although I had little faith that anything whatsoever was accomplished then to amend the situation, I didn't want to and it certainly wasn't necessary to try to persuade them of a more grim outlook, despite the fact that it might be true. A cliché, I know, but it seemed the only thing to hold onto was hope, which at least as of then was able to soften the evidence of what I saw as an impossible future.

As we talked I watched as the man next to me continued fiddling with this gun. Noticing I was taking some interest, he took out the magazine and handed both the gun and the magazine to me. I quickly looked at the cartridge and saw that it was empty. Then the man basically showed me how it worked and how to use it, pointing out where the safety was, how to slide the action back (I think it's called the action), how to remove the magazine and then he let me mess with it for a while.

Malik turned to me and said smiling, "If anyone in Gaza says that he doesn't know how to use a kalashnikova or an M-16, he is a liar. Everyone in Gaza can use one."

"I didn't know you had M-16s here. Where do you get them? Israeli soldiers?"

"No. Israel sells them to us."

"Really? Nice," I said nodding my head and smiling back. It was good to know Israel had chosen a side to endorse. More internal conflict and more "collaborators" certainly would make for an easier roadmap.

A car then approached us and I hid the gun in my lap as it passed. Having no desire to get caught up in a weapons appropriation debacle with Hamas, I gave the handgun back to the owner and he hid it under his shirt. We were up until about 2:30 that night before going to sleep. Malik said that it was very usual for him and his friends to stay up that late. The following day we spent visiting Malik's friends and talking about life in Gaza.

To this day, I still don't know what Malik's preconceptions of my understanding of Gaza were and where I was coming from. During my time there, he continuously told me, as if he was trying to convince me, that Gaza was now safer and that for the most part Fatah and Hamas got along. I believe when referring to either movement he was speaking of the majority of people, as opposed to the head leaders and politicians. Now, I was in no place to accept or refute what he was saying. I simply listened and asked questions, yet throughout my stay he was unabated in insisting on these points.

But the most peculiar reoccurring observation I had was although we spent most of our time with Fatah members and supporters, almost all the stories of internal conflict condemned Fatah as the perpetrator. Perhaps Malik assumed I was coming from an extremely anti-Hamas background and wanted to expose me to a different reality. Perhaps it was just implied with him and most of his friends that I spoke with, that the alternative to Fatah was so undesirable that constant criticism wasn't necessary. Or perhaps it was simply that there were a number of real bastards in Fatah, who were so criminal that they made the entire movement look bad, hence Hamas being more popular in Gaza. I think the last possibility was probably the case.

He told me numerous times how "some" Fatah would steal people's cars, bully Gazans for their money and goods, kidnap people and how high officials had sold out the cause of Palestinian liberation for their own personal gain and were profiting from the relentless struggle. And there were a number of specific incidences that I noticed. The following are just a few examples: 

On the third morning in Gaza, I woke up and walked into Malik's room where he was watching the television. A masked man with a Hamas headband and a number of other masked gunmen in the background was making a public statement. I asked Malik who it was and what he was saying. He told me it was one of the heads of Hamas' Izzedin al-Qassam Brigades. He was announcing that while searching through the records in Fatah PA security centers, which they had recently taken, they discovered Fatah correspondences with the Israeli government. The speaker said they found hardcopies and digital documentation that Fatah members in the PA had recently given the Israelis in-depth information on Hamas' political and military activities. I asked if this was real or a lie and Malik said that he didn't know but that Fatah was renowned for collaborating with the Israeli government against Hamas and had done this kind of thing many times in the past.

A few days later we had another late night-early morning nargula and hand-rummy session on the patio at the apartment of one of Malik's friends. While I dealt cards, Malik prayed in the corner about two yards way and one of his friends prepared the nargula, I was told about a man who lived across the alley from the apartment complex where we sat. One of the friends told me that this guy was an incredibly dodgy Fatah character that would shoot at anyone he didn't know who approached his building. Just then, while Malik was still praying his phone rang. He answered it, had a brief conversation and started his prayer over again. The man I was talking with continued. This neighbor was known for being involved in the murders and assassinations of Gazan citizens and Hamas members. He spoke of the man like he was fairly well known and incredibly disliked by everyone. And when the fighting broke out between Hamas and Fatah the man disappeared. No one knows for sure where he went, but the guys I was with suspected that he escaped and made his way into Egypt. It was well understood that if he ever returned to Gaza he would be killed. "Some Fatah are not good," Malik reiterated after finishing his prayer.

A few days later we paid a visit to one of Malik's old friends, an automobile mechanic for whom he had previously worked. As with other industries in Gaza, business in the mechanic field was bad, few customers had the money to pay for any automotive repairs, no less an automobile and as a result much of the day was spent smoking and drinking tea and coffee outside his shop. As per usual, we sat outside with him and his son while his wife made coffee.  And as per usual immediately after introductions our conversation shifted towards politics and the situation in Gaza. The mechanic told me of one of his neighbors, a student I believe, not associated to either Hamas or Fatah. Pointing across the street, he told me that a number of months ago on his way home, Abbas' presidential guards picked the boy up outside his apartment and he has never been heard from since. No one knows why he was kidnapped and no one in Fatah ever gave an explanation. "Just like the Israelis," he said jokingly, as kidnappings of this nature are common practice for Israel forces.

It's stories like these that make me truly sympathize with the impossibility of a functioning Palestinian government and a future political existence. In the West we hear enough stories castigating Hamas for all of its nonsense, but at least for me, before traveling to Palestine the degree of decadence within Fatah was fairly unknown. Contradictory to the demonizing of Arafat and his party, especially during the first years of the second intifada, Fatah has suddenly become the "good guys" in Israeli and American policy, and its participation in the military activities during the intifada seem to be either glossed over or unnoticed. So this was all news to me.

During the first few days in Gaza conversations and experiences remained strikingly Israeli-free. Life essentially consisted of exercising the nargulatory gland, drinking sugary drinks, Fatah and Hamas, with some Swedish immigration policy mixed in for flavor. And as the days passed, all too often I would be asked "Fatah or Hamas?" And the responses varied, usually "I don't know. What are you?" which would result in a list of grievances towards one party or the other or oftentimes both. But after that reply got boring I started responding with "PNI" (Palestine National Initiative, a more grass-roots party focusing on strengthening and democratizing Palestinian society, which is fairly unpopular in Gaza despite Barghouti's reputation), or "Jihad Islam" (Islamic Jihad) which people found to be moderately amusing, or once "Likud," which didn't go over so well, so changed the subject and never spoke of it again. But in general Israel and the occupation weren't a prevalent topic in the first few days.

But that all changed the day we went to Rafa, the Gaza border crossing with Egypt. In the morning Malik and I rented a taxi for the day, 70 shekels, and headed down Salah al-Din highway, the main road that runs through the Strip. On our way we passed through the old Nezarim Israeli settlement that divided Gaza in two and took a little detour through it. Just as we were about to turn on to a previously Israeli-only highway in comparatively pristine condition, a car with Hamas passed us. We honked at them to pull over and Malik asked them if the road was safe. They confirmed that it was. Malik thanked them and as we continued driving he turned to me and told me that whenever he goes to a place that he's not familiar with he always asks someone who knows what the conditions are like. He said that the week prior, it was dangerous to dive down this particular road. Apparently, people have been pulled over and kidnapped.  

We drove through mile after mile of remnants of Israeli greenhouses. Before coming here, I really hadn't appreciated how much land the settlements consumed in the Gaza Strip and with their idiosyncratic red roofs how distinct they were. The fields of greenhouses went on forever. Malik told me that before the settlers were pulled out they had destroyed the greenhouses and homes, cutting the water and electricity lines, smashed out the windows and left the homes uninhabitable.

Not convinced, I turned to him with an incredulous smirk and said, "Common, I could have sworn I saw pictures of Palestinians destroying the greenhouses after the pullout."

"Yes they did," he said but insisted that the homes and greenhouses were already in disarray by the time the Palestinians arrived (after looking into it more, I found out this was probably true). Personally, I would have no problem if the Palestinians alone ransacked the settlements, as doing so, although not rationally productive, does constitute one of the few up-yours gestures available to Gazans, but I wanted to see how Malik would respond.

As we continued towards Rafa Malik informed me that prior to the Israeli withdrawal, there were three main checkpoints along the highway, each usually taking about three hours to get through, necessitating a full day to make a 45km trip. Then we passed an abandoned cement shell of a mosque, with wooden scaffolding and supports still erected. Malik said that Gazans had been building the mosque until the wall was constructed and the economy crashed. Now no one had the money to pay for construction or even buy supplies.

At about 16:00 or 17:00 we reached the Rafa crossing, which at that time had been closed for six days. It was much more ghostly than Erez. A lone taxi driver was washing his car in the parking lot. Scattered luggage strollers lay about. As we entered the terminal two guards knelt praying in the corner. We were taken to the crossing point where a woman and her three children sat waiting. They had been there since 7:00 when they were told that they would be allowed through within an hour. After an hour had passed they were told two more hours. And after that, they were told they would be allowed through "soon."

After the fighting in Gaza, the U.S. and Israel pressured Egypt into closing the border, a move certainly not unexpected. But even I was surprised with the lack of criticism directed towards Egypt on the decision. I had been told by many Palestinians and internationals alike that "Israel closed the border," elevating Egypt of any responsibility. In fact for the first two weeks in Palestine, I believed that Israel physically controlled the border between Gaza and Egypt and had a permanent Israeli military presents much like at the Erez crossing.

On our way home we drove through Rafa city and then up along the cost towards Gaza city. From what I saw, Rafa had been ravaged by Israel occupation much more than Gaza city. Malik told me that the majority of the fighting and destruction during the occupation took place near the settlements. We passed building after building laden with bullet holes. Children played on rubble piles near the side of the road. Numerous homes and shops were stained with scorch marks from fires.

When we reached the ocean we headed northwards along the coast, passing more homes, this time with fewer bullet holes than the structures in Rafa. Malik said that during the occupation at night Israelis would drive along the cost shooting into the houses as they went; not targeting anything in particular, just terrorizing the residents and randomly firing on the homes. Arriving in Gaza city, we drove to the beach and finished the day with food, nargula and more hand rummy.

            Writing about Gaza has been peculiarly difficult and I'm not quite sure what is being produced yet. I am confident that this is certainly not a pipe; nor is it a 'world of pure experience.' At best these are memories and fables that don't attempt to expound objective fact or even truth. I hope however that they conjure a slightly cohesive angle of undertaking life, a life or many lives; or at the very least make you laugh. The glove is loosing its grip.

mcvay

mosque shell



near Rafa crossing



apartment in Rafa city



sunset in Gaza