temporary installation at the hotel, first meeting with our group: ten people, especially young people, Belgians too. We meet in a room for more discretion because the walls are full of ears in uniform at the entrance hotel, plainclothes in the lounge or around computers for free access.
single elevator can not respond to and fro permanent customers and activists in the floors. We spend more time waiting for the cab or on a tiny bearing once inside up and down before reaching the right floor. A game that puts pressure on those who have been there a few days and adds to the stress of information falling hour by hour.
This morning, the Egyptian authorities have clearly indicated that the border with Gaza was sealed and nobody was going.
In the afternoon a conference News organizers suggests that opportunities exist and buses are ready. One organization maintains the departure of the bus at 19h at the embassy of France and is ready to show if need ...
This position tends a little more discussions with the Egyptian police who decide to block the bus depots.
20.30: 200 people camped outside the embassy. Confirmation of blocking bus. Water cannons were on site ...
21h: after long minutes of waiting, we lift down to the ground floor, so we wanted to reach the terrace restaurant of the hotel. The 12th floor, some air and hope. Our buses are not part of those blocked at the depot.
Go to the next day for more info.
23h: Time to go to sleep after a night flight, a few hours of sleep, the whirlwind of the city and the joys of the elevator.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Finally a full night!
In the morning we do a round trip between the two hotels where our group is divided.
Campers are always outside the embassy and the bus depot with a ban on exit. Our buses do
are not in this situation and must leave around 14h to El Arish. The reference is to be discreet to reach the starting point.
How to be discreet to 50 people with backpacks and cameras? Besides the plainclothes officers who watch over the herd, Cairenes are all on the pitch of their shops to watch the start!
At 15h the bus starts! We thought ny more. Joy replaced the tension on their faces. Even if we're not far we seem to have crossed the first hurdle.
5 buses on the road with 200 people on board the French, Belgians, Greeks, Indians (from India), U.S. and Switzerland, all calm and determined to denounce the blockade of Gaza, Israel's impunity and complicity of the international community. Florent
the microphone we regularly reports on contacts between the buses.
Very soon, you have become disillusioned, the first two buses are stopped by traffic police, he said. The convoy
we form with two other buses is also stopped at twenty kilometers from Cairo. A gentleman in a suit and tie, a phone to each ear, seems very busy do not let us go further. He wanders nonchalantly on the edge of the highway is a vast dump where flying plastic bags and rubble piled up the sand gradually covered.
We stay there in the din of horns, microphones ads on the outcome of negotiations. After one hour, posting a colonel. He arrived in his uniform with gold buttons, and adds to his decorations, also a phone pendant at each of its ears. The bus driver explains that it is mounted very high, it is called the head of intelligence ... the Minister may be.
Meanwhile news arrived from the Embassy of France: those who spent the night on the sidewalk are in a situation far worse than ours. Trois solutions leur sont proposées : passer une nouvelle nuit sur le trottoir et être reconduite le lendemain à l'aéroport, être reconduites immédiatement à l'aéroport, ou encore être confinées jusqu'à leur avion de retour, au lycée français du Caire mis à disposition par l'ambassade.
Dans notre bus sur le bord de l'autoroute, nous avons au moins l'impression d'avoir bougé, mais si peu ... Nous essayons de gagner du temps pour permettre aux médias d'être sur place et de rendre compte de la situation. Au bout de deux heures, les services se font plus autoritaires et intiment l'ordre aux chauffeurs de bus de nous reconduire au Caire à nos hôtels. Toujours quiet and after a few exchanges between the 5 buses (long live the laptop ..) we bend this requirement, and decide to call the press for our return.
U-turn so bitter but good visibility on expected arrival. We are escorted by a police vehicle, which closely monitors our itinerary.
Who said that Gaza's southern border was permeable?
Who said the people of Gaza could be driven by humanitarian organizations? What steps
pacifists could enter Gaza?
That did not prevent the blockade of living ...
Well no, the blockade exists, we tested for you ...
(released on 20 December 2009 by the author on the site of the CCIPPP, http://www.protection-palestine.org
)
One year already. Gaza remembers choking Gaza, Gaza patient.
end of December 2008 end December 2009, a year already
... I will not return to this article about 3 weeks terrible experiences of the civilian population in Gaza during the Israeli aggression against an innocent region, against an open-air prison, against an isolated area and walled A population enclosed no possibility of escape ...
Everyone is free to qualify and describe in words the horrible events in Gaza: war, assault, shelling, killing, war crimes, bloody attacks, even barbaric attacks ... The only words to me were, massacres and crimes committed by the fifth military power in the world against a million and half civilians, cons women and children and old helpless against the entire infrastructure of the Gaza Strip, and this, in the deepest contempt for international condemnation.
is very difficult for me, Gazan, describe the current situation in Gaza one year after the end of Israeli aggression, because I could write pages and pages, even books, to mention only some of the suffering, pain and sacrifices of its people remain isolated, confined by the blockade, and abandoned to their fate in a fishbowl called free world.
Words escape me and expressions to talk de toute une population : femmes, jeunes, enfants, personnes âgées, patients, chômeurs, malades, blessés, invalides, tous ceux qui ont perdu pendant ce déferlement de massacres et de destructions, leurs maisons, leurs biens et surtout leurs proches, et qui, néanmoins, continuent de résister sur leur terre dans des conditions inhumaines, difficilement imaginables pour quelqu’un de l’extérieur.
Je ne sais pas de quel Gaza je vais parler : Gaza le blocus ? Gaza l’isolement ? Gaza la résistance ? Gaza la vie ? Gaza la souffrance ? Gaza la détermination ? Gaza la prison ? Gaza la mort lente ? Gaza la tristesse ? Gaza l’obscurité ? Gaza l’opprimée ? Gaza choking? Gaza impotence? Gaza misfortune? Gaza or hope?
A year already ... Gaza late December 2009, a year after these events Gazans remember - how could they forget? They remember these 20 days of carnage ever seen since the Israeli occupation 48. First they remember more of their martyrs, over 1,400 killed by the Israeli air force bombs or bullets of the soldiers: they remember the house, over 6000, hospitals, schools, shelters for the population, destroyed by bombing in the Israeli-discriminated; they remember the passive complicity of the international community during the massacres. In the human world in the twenty-first century, how is this possible?
A year already and nothing has changed in Gaza ... The inhuman blockade imposed since more than 3 years still tightens its grip, even more inhumane in the current situation in Gaza, the passages that connect Gaza to the outside world are open to the dropper on the Israeli military, 80% of the civilian population in Gaza live on international food aid, when they can go, the wounded and sick or die waiting for death because he is forbidden to go outside to seek treatment outside hospitals and that their lack of proper equipment.
end of December 2009, a year already and Gaza survives still in pain, patient Gaza ... Gaza is still waiting for the awakening of global consciousness, Gaza continues to expect the application of international law, Gaza continues to suffer with only his determination to continue to live ... not to die ...
A year and more than 10 000 inhabitants of Gaza are still living in tents beside the ruins of their houses because all the building materials are banned from the Gaza Strip by military order Israel.
Gaza in late December 2009, hopes anyway. His reasons for hope, as were the powerful expressions of support around the world are mobilizing civil society and political representatives around the world for governments and decision makers from the international community provide for the lifting the blockade and the reopening of crossings, so that finally the people of Gaza can begin to restore their environment ... to heal their wounds, so that finally they can expect to start to live a normal life in their region in their cities, dans leurs villages...
Gaza, fin décembre 2009, à la veille de la marche commémorative internationale : Gaza n’en peut plus, Gaza survit au jour le jour, Gaza étouffe, Gaza crie dans le silence des médias internationaux, Gaza attend... Gaza espère... espère et demande... Les Palestiniens de Gaza espèrent et demandent la restauration de leurs droits fondamentaux, de leur droit à la vie dans le monde, à la paix par l’application de la justice.
Le chemin de la paix passe par la justice, rien que la justice.
Gaza et les Palestiniens aspirent à la paix dans la liberté et la justice.
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