West Belfast Sinn Féin Sinn Féin -- Building an Ireland of Equals

Day 3 of Bairbre de Brun visit to Gaza

Published: 26 February, 2009

We leave the hotel at 6.00am to travel to Gaza

We leave the hotel at 6.00am to travel to Gaza. We still haven't got confirmation that the Israeli authorities will definitely let us into Gaza. Apparently this is par for the course. We decide that the MEPs will make the two hour journey to Gaza anyway, as they haven't said they won't let us in either.

The staff members will stay behind because the Israelis have already told us that our whole delegation is too big to get into Gaza. On the bus, Italian MEP Luisa Morgantini explains the procedures and the planned programme for the day. Fifteen minutes away from Gaza we hear that the Israelis will let everyone in except three people.

We all speculate as to who the three people will be. When we reach the checkpoint I hear that one Green MEP has not yet been cleared but all the others have.

She had been commiserating with me before as we speculated that I might be one of those blocked. We are hopeful that she too will be cleared and that we can all go in together.

The wall behind and around the checkpoint looks for all the world like Long Kesh, but the 'terminal itself is a vast building - part glass part concrete - that could be one of the many shiny big factories that have sprung up all over Ireland in recent years. Inside it is big and deserted. Apart from our delegation just one humanitarian aid worker from Oxfam waits to go through. Before the siege there were thousands of people flowing in and out of Gaza.

Now, because of the siege virtually no one can go.

In the end the crossing goes quickly and smoothly. The Israeli army checks our passports against the list they have of who is to be admitted and we pass through passport control. They have decided to let everyone in.

Moving from the Israeli side into Gaza we pass through a large swathe of empty ruined lands. This includes a former industrial estate which the Israeli Defence Forces some years ago completely demolished at the time of their unilateral withdrawal. It is quite eerie and we haven't even reached the parts recently shelled yet. When we come to Jabalia camp which houses 120,000 refugees, the contrast with the pristine, clinical, empty checkpoint at Erez couldn't be greater.

As we enter the UN food distribution centre, we see that the police station next door has been bombed. UNRWA previously distributed food aid to the worst off of the refugees. Now they need to cover almost everyone as people's livelihoods have been swept away, leaving them dependent on food aid.

Not only that, but the trucks being let in are a fraction of what is needed.

There used to be 700 trucks a day coming into Gaza. Now on a given day there might be as little as 20 or 30 trucks or even none at all.

Later, I can hardly keep from crying as I stand in the ruins of Izbet Abed Rabbo. I speak briefly to a woman who stands in front of the ruins of her home. All around us are mounds of rubble that until recently were houses.

All in all 250 houses were reduced to rubble in this one small area and 1,500 families were badly affected in the wider area.

At the bombed out Atta Abu Joba company - the largest factory in Gaza and the only cement packaging factory in all Palestine, we hear that the bombing of the civilian and business infrastructure has been quite deliberate and precise. This is not accidental or 'collateral damage'. This factory, for example, was bombed in the last three days of the war. It was not bombed from the air. The owner tells us the Israeli soldiers had time to get out of the tanks and place mines around the base of the columns holding up the plant. So they know there was no danger from this building.

By destroying this factory they are also delaying the rebuilding of people's houses in the area. The only trucks coming into Gaza are the emergency aid from the big agencies. The whole economy is at a standstill. I thought I had seen a lot through the conflict in the North of Ireland, but nothing prepared me for this. Schools damaged, hospitals wrecked, homes reduced to rubble. And still the people keep going somehow. Families stay with relatives, kids go to school, life of some sort goes on. But what kind if life?

And how will these children be affected by what they have lived through? How can the world carry on as if this had not happened? It's obscene! Having watched footage on the TV of a convoy of white UN vans travelling through a war ravaged area I never though I would end up travelling inside such a convoy or be haunted by the images we see all around us.

In Gaza city we meet first with John Ging, Director of UNRWA operations, Gaza, and then with representatives of civil society. John Ging sums up the situation when he says to us that this is not about being pro-Israeli or anti-Israeli but about being pro basic fundamental humanity, based on the rule of law. He also stresses that there have to be mechanisms of accountability and that the parents of the hundreds of children killed demand justice.

Ultimately it is the responsibility of the international community the high contracting parties to the Geneva Convention to ensure there is accountability coming out of this, he says. The civil society representatives thank us for coming, but not surprisingly some challenge us about what we are going to do besides visit. They don't feel there is any safety or security for their future and want a commitment that the same thing will not happen again. We tell them we will campaign to see the necessary steps taken ensure a better future for them but we can give no promises. It is heartbreaking.

As we leave this meeting we see other bombed out buildings, including health facilities and the American School which has been flattened by F16 bombers. We travel back through the checkpoint and although coming back does not go as smoothly as going in the problems seem little compared to what we have seen and heard.

As we finish the day in Jaffa speaking to those involved in human rights advocacy there, including a young man who spent a couple of months working with the Human Rights Commission in Belfast, we are determined that our delegation visit to Gaza today cannot be just a visit. We must find a way for it to strengthen the move towards real justice, accountability and conflict resolution.