Al-Sayafa: A Case Study In Dispossession

[Violet_Crumble]

By Jacob Pace,
writing from Gaza City, occupied Palestine


Electronic Intifada
08 October 2003

3 October 2003 -- We were sitting outside a small shack at the edge of a Bedouin community in the Northern Gaza Strip region of Al-Sayafa. Abu Housa, one of the Bedouin elders, sat with us speaking in quick, expressive Arabic phrases, spreading his arms and flinging his hands about, the gestures adding emotional context to words that, for the most part, I could not understand. When we first arrived at the community we were quickly invited to sit in the shade of the shack and offered tea, as is customary here. There were five of us visitors -- myself, another international worker, two other staff members from our organization (the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights), and our taxi driver from Gaza City.

As we interviewed Abu Housa, we sat with our backs to the shack and gazed directly across a small depression at a massive Israeli army base about 150 meters in front of us. On our left, to the West, the dirt track fell away to an electrified gate at the bottom of the hill, again, about 150 meters away. The gate is the only entrance in a fence that runs north-east from the illegal Israeli settlement of Dugit, south of the gate. The fence cuts across Palestinian land, eventually reaching Nissanit, another illegal Israeli settlement in the center of Gaza's northern border.

The land around us was dry and bare. To the everyday observer it would appear to be an extension of coastal sand dunes, barren and inhospitable. However, this area used to be one of the most fertile in Northern Gaza. Strawberries and other crops once covered the rolling hills. In fact, Al-Sayafa was home to a successful agricultural development project during the Egyptian occupation of Gaza from 1948-1967. The Palestinian refugees who came here sought to rebuild their lives after they were forced to flee their homes in what is now Israel (see www.palestineremembered.com or www.alnakba.org). However, since Israel took control of Gaza in 1967, life in Al-Sayafa has become increasingly difficult.

http://www.countercurrents.org/pa-pace081003.htm