In a tight spot in Gaza
Updated on 24 January 2009
Jonathan Miller reports on the pitfalls of inspecting smuggle tunnels in Gaza.
"Maybe for you, it is difficult," the man wrapped in the red-and-white-checked kaffiyeh said, sizing me up. "Ladder stop, you rope, but only eight metres."
I peered into the small square opening, into the blackness below. So did my producer, Girish, and my cameraman, Stuart. "OK," said Stuart, "so we absail the last bit and you just brace yourself with your back to the wall. Like caving."
Nothing an erstwhile amateur speliologist couldn't handle then. I grimaced, nodded, strapped on my head-torch and then suffered a series of dark reveries involving newspaper headlines.
"British TV Correspondent Wedged in Gaza Tunnel."
"C4 journalist in a hole with Hamas."
So thank God, then, that Hamas Health and Safety stepped in. The man with the beard arrived and told us it would not be a good thing for me to get stuck. He had a point. It was the coming up bit that worried me.
"He's right, you know, Stuart," I said. "Box office, or not, I'm not going down." Stuart feigned disappointment.
The repair men were hard at it and it only was 7am. Within a couple of hours, the Israelis would have announced their complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. After many years of ground-hog days in Gaza, another had dawned.
Of the 2,000-odd tunnels, through which Gazans smuggled from Egypt everything from Qassam rockets to crocodiles for their zoo, many - probably hundreds - were severely damaged if not destroyed by the relentless pounding they'd taken from Israeli war planes.
But with little prospect of Israel now asceding to Hamas's ceasefire terms by easing its embargo on the Strip, there wasn't much for it, I was told, but to rebuild and get tunnelling again.
I have no evidence at all that Hamas or any of the other jihadi groups in Gaza are already re-importing guns and rockets through those tunnels.
The bombed-out border with Egypt was a flurry of activity, with structural engineers measuring up and agile lads nipping down with (bizarrely enough) eco-friendly light bulbs to replace those shattered by the blasts. Good to know the Palestinian Islamic Resistance is at least environmentally-conscious.
I have no evidence at all that Hamas or any of the other jihadi groups in Gaza are already re-importing guns and rockets through those tunnels.
But if they're not, they probably will be soon, because wherever I went I encountered nothing but support for the aims of the resistance even among those who openly admitted they did not support Hamas.
For Gazans, it's all about dignity. The miserable arid strip of land, onto which 1.5-million of them are crammed, affords little enough of that at the best of times, so having been bombarded for three weeks, with nowhere to run to, the blitz-spirit is even more evident than usual.
Families whose homes were destroyed have erected new shelters, using broken breezeblocks and whatever else they can salvage. Early every morning, the street sweepers are out. This morning, I saw a team of workmen out fixing a bombed water main; another, working on overhead electrics. Soon the road-menders will be out too, filling the huge craters made by Israeli bombs.
Dignity, in the Palestinian mind, is also about standing up to what everyone in Gaza views as Israeli aggression. Again and again I was bombarded by their indignation over the UN Secretary General's comments that "Israel has a right to defend itself."
"What about us?" they'd say. "We don't have any national army. But we have Qassams." Read for that: "Or we will have Qassams again soon."
Israel's main objectives in its war on Gaza were bringing Hamas to its knees, putting a stop to the weapons-smuggling and re-establishing the principle of deterrence.
Hamas's main objectives were to boost its prestige, to demonstrate to the world what one Hamas spokesman described to me as "the brutal face of the Israeli occupation," and to force the world to rethink its policies on Palestine.
Keeping those objectives in mind makes it easier to assess who gained most from this conflict. Whatever your answer though, it was - as always - ordinary civilians who've paid the highest price.
