I attended Fr David Smith’s talk, “Report from Gaza: Occupation, Withdrawal, and the Future,” on Saturday, September 10. I arrived with my notebook and camera, but left with more than notes. I was full of questions. So, I spent the rest of a beautiful September afternoon on the internet learning more about the village of Rafah. Well, after all, Fr David Smith is a teacher (peace studies professor at St. Thomas), so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

David spent most of July, 2005 in Rafah, a town in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. He went with the Michigan Peace Team. He was invited to go for two reasons: (1) because he is a Catholic priest and only priests and nuns are allowed into Gaza, and (2) because he plays the fiddle (the person who invited him on the trip had heard David play the violin in India and was convinced he had to play in Gaza too).

David’s presentation was a powerful look at the life and struggles of Palestinians in this politically volatile part of the world. I will try to recapture some of the highlights of his trip below. But first, for those of you, who, like me, are not as familiar with details of Rafah and the Gaza Strip, a brief background summary might make it more meaningful:

The Gaza Strip is a narrow strip of land, approximately 10 miles long and 6 miles wide. It is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, and home to 1.3+ million Palestinians. The majority of the residents are direct descendants of refugees who fled or were expelled from Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Israel has controlled all external borders, crossing points, and some internal roads since for 38 years. Gaza has high unemployment and serious environmental problems, especially with contaminated water.

Rafah is a town on the Egyptian border, part of which lies in Gaza and part of which lies in Egypt. The two are separated by a massive metal security wall topped with razor wire, part of what is known as the “Philadelphia Corridor,” (a strip of Israeli controlled land alongside the Egypt-Gaza border). About half of the residents of Rafah live in refugee camps. In the summer of 1971, Israeli bulldozers plowed through dense urban areas of the city to create patrol roads for the Israeli forces. These demolitions in Rafah displaced nearly four thousand people.

Rafah has been a major area of conflict since the 2000 Intifada mainly due to the existence of tunnels that connect Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Palestinians say that the tunnels have been used for years to smuggle unavailable goods and sometimes people. There is a popular story of smuggling a fiancée through the tunnels for $1000. The Israeli army says that the tunnels are used to smuggle terrorists and weapons and since 2000 has used dynamite to demolish over 1,600 Palestinian homes near the tunnel. Human rights organizations argue that Israel could but refuses to use modern technology to detect and neutralize these tunnels without the inhumane destruction of homes. This is the town that David visited for a month this summer.

They visited families, an architect, a doctor, farmers. Everywhere there is the rubble of demolitions, but often a little garden could be found amongst the rubble, a sign of the people’s perseverance.

They said Mass at the metal security wall. They could see but not visit the Israeli settlement that is built between the sea and the wall that separates the Palestinians from the sea. David played his fiddle at the wall.

They visited The Rachel Corrie Center for Kids. This center is for traumatized and disturbed kids. Rachel Corrie is a hero in Gaza. She was an American activist who was killed when she stood between an Israeli bulldozer and a Palestinian home to try to stop a demolition. They also visited the neighborhood where the British activist, Tom Hurndall, was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper while trying to save some kids.

They visited a university, the zoo, the mayor, and taught a workshop on future development potential. They encouraged grass roots development and self-sufficiency as opposed to the US RAND Corp hi-tech model (you might want to read “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” to understand the ramifications of such a model).

They suffered the frustration of checkpoints. Once, when traveling to the university in Khan Younis, the team had to go through the Abu Holi checkpoint, which divides southern and northern Gaza. It had been closed for a day and a half. There were sick and elderly people who needed to pass, but had to sit and wait in the hot sun. They met a family who had come from the United Arab Emerites to register their little girl (Palestinians have to register every 5 years or lose citizenship). Registration ended the next day. The family had flown to Cairo, then bused to Gaza, only to be held up at Abu Holi checkpoint. The Michigan team finally gave up, but David learned later that the soldiers decided to open up the checkpoint for an hour. Naturally there was a scramble to make it through, and the soldiers shot and killed a 15 year old boy. A young life for an hour’s passage – is it worth it?

The team also experienced a very frightening abduction of one of their members. On Sunday, July 24, Fr.Harry Bury, a 75-year old retired priest, was taken from the team’s apartment at gunpoint by a group of four men wearing military fatigues. Fr. Harry was blindfolded, put in a vehicle and driven to an undisclosed location where he was questioned about his affiliations and later released unharmed.

While very frightening, Fr. Harry felt it was not the work of professionals but rather a desperate measure taken by men to express their anger and frustration over the occupation. When they released Harry, they gave him back his mobile phone and wallet, without taking any of the nearly $1000 that he had in it. To read more about Harry’s abduction, go to http://michiganpeaceteam.org/mpt/.

As a final farewell, the MPT team was prevented from leaving the area by another Israeli military closure of the Abu Holi checkpoint. The team waited all day Monday at the Abu Holi checkpoint and were only allowed by Israeli soldiers to cross well after dark, nearly causing a couple of the members to miss their flights.

Fr. David went on to the West Bank on Saturday, July 30th, to the Israeli checkpoint in the West Bank town of Hebron to join in on a protest against the presence of numerous army checkpoints in Hebron. Of course, he played his fiddle there.

As I finished my afternoon of follow up research, I was left with a question. What will happen to Rafah, or all of the Gaza Strip for that matter, after the Israeli disengagement?

HEADLINE: Star Tribune, September 13, 2005, pA3 – In Gaza, joyous Palestinians return to long-forbidden land. “…thousands of Palestinians – robed women, ragged children, even weapons-toting militants – flocked to what had been for decades a forbidden shore.”

HEADLINE: Khaleej Times Online, September 13, -- Rafah wall comes tumbling down, but only until midnight. “… thousands slipped into Egypt to snap up cut-price bargains, visit family or simply prove that foreign travel was suddenly all so easy. Grinning ear-to-ear, Akram Hamdi, 35, stretches out his hand to wife Safaa as they stumble across sand churned up by tank tracks. ‘She’s Egyptian. We got married six years ago but we never managed to get permission for her to come and join me. Now we’re going home’ he said.”

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Rose Grengshas been a SJA parishioner since 1982. She is an immigration attorney and passionate about the subject. She is a member of the choir and active in the Peace Movement. She and her husband, Paul, routinely attend the 11:00 Mass. She is the mother of four children and grandmother of two. She is looking forward to retirement, travel and enjoys music, especially singer, songwriter, Greg Brown.

Fr. David Smith provided our webteam with photos from Gaza.