With Gazan Workers: Checkpoint Death

IT IS 7 a.m. on Thursday, February 12, 2004. One by one, men from Gaza arrive at a collection point for day-laborers in Jaffa. These are the lucky few who managed this morning to get through Checkpoint Erez (Checkpoint Death, they call it) on the northern end of the Gaza Strip. Thousands of their colleagues remain behind, despite the large sums they paid for work permits.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has announced his intention to "disconnect" Israel unilaterally from the Palestinians. No one asks these workers what they think about that, although they, more than anyone else, embody the connection between Gaza and Tel Aviv.

Abu Yasser (51), a plasterer from Sheikh Radwan, is the sole breadwinner for twelve children. He describes his life: "The worker's day starts at one a.m., when he leaves his house for the checkpoint. There are some, though, who are already there from seven p.m. Out of the 15,000 workers with permits, at most 3000 enter. [For an update, see the next article.] The soldiers make the workers line up in groups of three. They order them to lift their shirts with one hand, exposing their bellies, while holding their work permits up with the other. The workers, pressed together, struggle to pass through two or three revolving doors, each half a meter wide. The jam at the doors slows everything down. This increases the pressure, and workers are shoved into one another to the point that they can hardly breathe. More than once it's happened that workers fell and were trampled beneath the feet of their friends. All this we undergo to bring a bit of bread home to our children.

"Today I had to use force to get in, because I'm down to the point of no money at all. I swear to God, there is simply no food in the house. I had to borrow thirty shekels to reach Jaffa. But with all that, there's no guarantee I'll find work today."

Contractors drive up to the junction in search of workers. One of the latter, named Ahmed, runs to the car and negotiates, but then he returns to the group. He is asking 350 shekels (ca. $80) for a day's work. "You're too expensive, Ahmed," we tell him. He answers with confidence: "Because I have golden hands. I'm 51 and I've been in this profession 30 years. I can do the most complicated work blindfolded. The bosses exploit us. They try to lower our wage, and sometimes they just don't pay us at all. Isn't it enough that we have to fork out 2000 shekels to "permit-contractors" for the chance to work in Israel?"

Abu Muhammad Najar (45) arrives. A father of six, he is a molder and mason. His oldest daughter, he says with pride, studies medicine at the university. "I should have been here at 6:30," he says. "The contractor I work with can't wait more than half an hour. Because it takes so long at Erez, I can't get here before 7:30." He tells us he was at the checkpoint from 1:30 a.m. If he manages in any case to find work, he will finish at 4 p.m., arriving home at 8. He will shower, sup, and kiss his sleeping children. The smallest, seven years old, will wake up murmuring, "Daddy, daddy…" That will be, he says, "one of the hardest moments," because he doesn't have time to play with her. He has to get three or four hours of sleep until the nightmare begins again: a return to the swarm of men crowding in on the checkpoint gates.

We talk further with Abu Muhammad Najar. He has worked in Israel for more than twenty years. During the last three, he says, the situation has deteriorated. "After the start of the second Intifada, the checkpoint was shut down. It opened again just six months ago. There have always been difficulties. For the last two months, though, ever since Rim did what she did [Rim al-Riashi blew herself up at the Erez Checkpoint on January 14, killing four Israelis – A.A.], the situation has become unbearable – and illogical as well."

Ahmed seconds this: "I know workers who since that event haven't managed to pass through even once. Two solid months without income. There's no call to do such things at places where workers gather."

We ask: Are Israel's new measures at the checkpoint a result of suicide actions?

Ahmed: "Not in the least. If Israelis want security, bon appetit! But someone who seeks to die will not be hindered by checkpoints or security searches. The truth is otherwise: Israel isn't interested in letting workers in. If it was, it would open twenty gates instead of two. They simply like to torture us."

Abu Yasser: "What the Israelis do at the checkpoint has no relation to security. Do you think that a worker who rises at 1 a.m. to bring bread back to his children is going to do a thing like that?"

Muhammad Yusef (41) joins the conversation. He is angry: "Has it ever happened that a worker did such a thing? Why do they shut the borders in our faces? The Israelis always do this: they tie our fate as workers to politics. If the political situation's OK, then we're OK. If it's not OK, then so much the worse for us." Muhammad Yusef is father to eleven children. He lives in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood (where the army killed fifteen of his neighbors on February 11).

"What's your opinion on the plan to disconnect from Gaza?" we ask. Abu Yasser answers at once: "Sharon is laughing at the Arabs. It's impossible to believe him. He wants to take the settlements out of Gaza and transplant them in the West Bank. For a long time now, Israel has had no interest in keeping Gaza."

We ask, "For all of you, what would it mean for Israel to disconnect unilaterally from Tel Aviv?"

Abu Yasser: "It means that the people of Gaza will devour one another. There won't be any work. How are we supposed to eat? This is one and a half million people! True, livelihood is from God, but certain conditions have to exist: there have to be jobs."

Ahmed: "Unilateral withdrawal is not a good solution. They need to reach an agreement with the PA [Palestinian Authority – A.A.]. If they don't create jobs to replace the ones lost, there will be problems. The president and our labor unions will have to make sure that we don't perish. Maybe they'll find us jobs outside the country, in Saudi Arabia, for instance. All we want is an end to the Occupation so that we can live. All we want is to work and feed our children."

We ask: Israel justifies the disconnection by saying it's the only way left to cope with the Intifada. What do you think of this argument?

Abu Muhammad Najar: "The Intifada broke out because people demanded their rights. If Israel wants security and peace, it will have to give others their right to freedom as well. What Israel is doing today in Rafiah, Khan Yunis and Gaza City is a massacre. I come here to work in order to live. If the other side kills or wounds or destroys me, it's natural that there will be a reaction. There is no such thing as security for one side only."

The interview ended. The Gazan workers returned to invisibility. No one asks how they feel about things, no one wants to know. No one wonders whether they will return to Jaffa tomorrow or be crushed beneath the heels of their fellow workers. Will they overcome Checkpoint Death or be overcome by it?

Four days after we talked with the workers in Jaffa, Muhammad Ibrahim Said al-Sheikh (41), from the al-Darj neighborhood in Gaza – after standing all night at the Erez checkpoint – was crushed to death at 6:30 a.m. n

The testimony of Muhammad, a construction worker:

"If you were in my place…"

"What will you do," we asked, "if Israel disconnects from Gaza?"

"I'll go to Sweden! God created other places apart from Israel, no?"

With these words Muhammad, a mason from Gaza and a father of 15, began a monologue which we bring in its entirety:

"I swear to God, a Gazan who works in Israel cannot keep it up for more than five months. In the end he collapses. To stand at Erez is more exhausting than five days' work. I could explode from standing there. I've gotten terribly sick. That's because they force us, at the coldest time of day, to take off our coats and expose our bellies, which are soaked with sweat from the horrible crowding. But that's not enough for them, no. They also point their rifles at our bellies. I never in my life imagined torture like what we go through there. They don't treat animals this way.

"There was a time when we could leave the house at 5 a.m. and be in Jaffa at 6:30. Now I'm at the checkpoint by 10 p.m. each night. I'm out of my wits from the things I've seen. Two men so far have died right in front of me. Ten more were injured. I don't know what they want, why they're doing these things to us.

"They say it's for security, but this isn't true. What kind of security do they get when we bare our bellies in front of them? We tell them we came in peace to work and make a living. Isn't it enough that in Gaza we can't survive? Here I am, a mason and molder, and today my chance of finding work is nil. Who's going to hire me at 8:30 in the morning?

"This week I got through the checkpoint twice. Every night I'm there at 10, and my kids haven't gone to bed yet. Why do I go? Don't I go in order to work? I don't understand. If you were in my place… How do you think a man can stand on his feet eight hours straight at the checkpoint? He can't even relieve himself because of the crowding.

"Our life is a tragedy. Sometimes I think of going to Sweden. What keeps me in Gaza is my kids. Tell me what I should do. I hope I can at least find work in order to hold on. God willing, there'll be a solution and we'll be able to live together, Palestine and Israel, one beside the other. May God make it so."

With Gazan Workers: Checkpoint Death

Asma Agbarieh