Stephen Williams Visits Gaza

Bristol West MP Stephen Williams has visited Gaza on a cross-party fact-finding mission. He writes...

"The visit was organised by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Palestine. We were hosted by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and the Council for Arab-British Understanding. Our original intention was to visit both the Gaza Strip and Southern Israel, in order to get the perspective of both the Palestinians and Israelis. Unfortunately, the Israeli Government refused permission for us to travel to Israel, and thereby denied us the opportunity to hear firsthand about rocket attacks on Southern Israeli towns. This meant that we had to travel to Cairo and then overland through the Sinai desert, entering Gaza at the Rafah crossing point.

The Gaza Strip has a complicated history. At the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, it became home to thousands of Palestinian refugees, and was effectively administered by Egypt. After the Six Day War in 1967, it was under Israeli occupation, and was populated by some Israeli settlements. In 2005, Israel pulled out of Gaza, and since then has effectively had the territory under siege as it has closed the borders. It only allows in a restricted list of goods, and only allows people to cross the border in limited circumstances. In December 2009, the Israeli army bombarded Gaza for over two weeks, and invaded the territory. This was met with international outrage, as around 1400 Palestinian civilians, of whom approximately 300 were children, were killed.

Many Bristol West constituents raise this issue with me, and in January 2009, I joined over a thousand Bristolians on a protest march from Stapleton Road to College Green, where I addressed the rally. When an opportunity came up for a humanitarian visit to Gaza, I was keen to participate, in order to gain first hand experience. The delegation was led by former Liberal leader David Steel, and as well as myself there were two Labour MPs on the visit.

The first thing we saw once we crossed the Egypt-Palestine border was the astonishing network of tunnels which have been dug in order to smuggle a vast range of goods into the territory. Egypt and Israel have an agreement that all goods must be imported into Gaza via the Israeli border, and only passengers may travel across the Egyptian border. As Israel has operated a blockade for the last three years, this means that most foodstuffs and household goods are smuggled in from Egypt via over a thousand tunnels. We visited two of these. As the terrain is obviously sandy in this area, the tunnels are subject to frequent collapse, and every week people are killed as a result. This first impression is in fact perhaps the most important one made on me - we have a situation where 1.5 million people are effectively being played with by their powerful neighbours. The entire population are not in control of their own destiny.

We visited an UNRWA housing project where work has been suspended as the Israelis will not allow the importation of building materials. This is a serious problem throughout Gaza, as quite obviously reconstruction work is desperately needed after the bombardment. This was made particularly clear to us on a visit to the Al-Quds Hospital in the centre of Gaza City, which had been very badly damaged during the war. There are international funds available for reconstruction. All that is missing is access to the materials.

During our time in Gaza we visited two schools. While, to some extent, the children we met were happy in their school environment, and I was particularly impressed by their grasp of English, another profound impression made on me is the long-term effect of the war, and the siege, on the children and young people of Gaza. The children clearly have nightmares about the situation, and there is a great need for more trained counsellors. There is an obvious terrible danger that a generation will grow up without a positive image of the rest of the world and with a particular hatred for their neighbours.

The bombardment and siege have effectively destroyed a normally functioning market economy. So, whilst we saw that there were many goods for sale, most of these were as a result of smuggling. This means that there are inflated prices, and criminal profits. Those people who are unable to access food from shops are dependent on humanitarian aid. We visited on Sunday morning the quarterly distribution of basic foods by UNRWA. People are given a sack of flour, cooking oil, pasta, tins of luncheon meat and other basics. Most of these heavy items were taken away to people's homes by donkey carts, a familiar site on Gaza's roads.

During the visit, we also visited a new sewage treatment works - the water quality in Gaza causes health problems, and much of the raw waste is either left on the land, or pumped into the sea. We also met local political leaders from both the ruling Hamas organisation, and the opposition Fatah. While meeting the Justice Minister, we raised the case of the imprisoned British journalist, Paul Martin, and asked for his case to be reconsidered. I am pleased to report that the Minister informed us later in the day that they were prepared to make a gesture of good will. Mr Martin has actually been released today.

I have returned to Britain with many thoughts and impressions. What is taking place in Gaza is nothing short of a humanitarian outrage. Britain and the European Union should exert more pressure on the Israelis to lift the blockade, and allow goods and people to cross the frontier. Only then can reconstruction commence, and people be given a more hopeful future."