Hannah Bowler*

Introduction

The unlawful blockade of the Gaza Strip began in 2007, when Israel and Egypt effectively isolated nearly 2 million Gazan’s by enforcing a land, air and sea blockade, claiming it to be in proportionality to the security threat posed by Palestine. For the past 10 years Israel and Egypt have imposed severe and rigid travel restrictions on the citizens of Gaza. These restrictions affect and dictate nearly every aspect of life in the Strip.1 Here the principle of freedom of movement is being denied, the right to freedom of movement is a prerequisite for a range of other rights, civil, political, social and cultural as well as being an essential condition to having a good quality of life. No other citizens in the world have to endure this form of claustrophobic trauma. The closure of Gaza Strip is illegal under international law, it contravenes Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1) everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state (2) everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own and return to his country.2 Israel and Egypt are also permitted by the fourth Geneva Convention which provides protections for people living under occupation. Restrictions to the freedom of movement are allowed under international law if related to issues of security, but the restrictions have to be proportionate to the threat and non-discriminatory in nature.3 In relation to Gaza these two conditions are not met thus rendering Israel’s blockade illegal. 

The blockade has created dependence on the crossing that links Egypt to the Gaza Strip, in the area known as Rafah. The crossing in Rafah has had an erratic and temperamental history, having largely unpredictable periods of being open and then closed leaving a strain on the people of Gaza. In recent years according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) the border had been open just 72 days in 2014, 32 in 2015 and 44 days in 2016. Up until August 15th it had only been opened 18 days over the whole of 2017.4 Its closure has left Palestinians stranded on both sides of the border, and the OCHA estimates that there are around 30,000 Palestinians registered as humanitarian cases waiting to leave Gaza.5 The unique situation of the Gaza Strip has left it being characterised as the ‘world largest open-air prison’.6 The impact of the closure of the Strip has been immense. It undermines Gaza’s prospects of building a successful and flourishing civil society and leaves Palestinians feeling powerless to change their future and build a better quality of life. This paper focuses on how the closure of Rafah has undermined the prospects of Palestinians being able to establish a stable state, develop economically and to create a thriving cultural society. It attempts to usher in a debate about how these factors are linked to the restrictions on the obtainment of higher education and the psychological impact of stifling ambition and feelings of hopelessness about the future.      

History of the Rafah Crossing

The Rafah Crossing in Arabic is aptly known as ‘Al Awda’ in English ‘the return’.7 Throughout Gaza’s history the crossing has been seen as a lifeline connecting the Strip to the outside world, and being intrinsically linked to gaining freedom and autonomy. Access through the Rafah Crossing has been in a state of flux over the course of Gaza’s history. Israel had maintained control over the Crossing keeping it largely shut until the 2005 disengagement of Gaza. It was then agreed that Egypt, along with the Palestinian Authority and the European Union (a body set up called European Union Border Mission in Rafah, EUBAM) would jointly manage the border under the Agreement of Movement and Access (AMA). The AMA allowed for the border to be opened facilitating the free movement of people alleviating the humanitarian situation. This relative piece of salvation was short lived as come 2006 Israeli forces demanded the border be shut once more as a form of collective punishment reacting to the abduction of Israeli solider Gilad Shalit. After the capture of Shalit Israel closed all access into Gaza completely isolating it, Chomsky and Pappe condemn Israel for this seeing that the capture of Shalit turned Israel’s unrelenting military attack against Gaza from merely vicious to ‘truly sadistic’.8 This incident led to the suspension of the AMA and put the EUBAM on standby. At this point although Israel had effectively closed the border many Palestinians were still granted access through the crossing, but this ceased in 2007 when Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip. The Hamas control over Gaza keeps all other parties against Rafah’s opening.

The domestic political situation in Egypt has helped shape the conflict over Rafah. Prior to the Egyptian Uprising in 2011 the Mubarak regime had opposed Hamas believing it to be an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood (the opposition party in Egypt). As a method to undermine the Hamas Administration of Gaza Mubarak aided Israel’s enforcement of the blockade, including limiting access through the crossing. After the overthrow of Mubarak and the election of Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and Fatah reached an agreement in May of 2011 that the border would be reopened permanently. Again, Rafah’s opening was not to be in perpetuity, come 2013 Morsi had been removed from power in a military coup and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took power and the border was closed indefinitely.9 Since this point the crossing has been open for just a few days each month with the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Fatah and Egypt keeping any debate about Rafah in a state of deadlock. The crossing has become a power struggle with no party willing to compromise on its demands which is causing the perpetuation of its closure.10 However, 2017 has ushered in the potential for a sustained change to the operation of Rafah, and the other crossings into Gaza. In October of 2017 a truce between Hamas and Fatah, facilitated by Egypt was formulated, as part of the truce it was agreed that Hamas would hand over control of Gaza’s borders to the Palestinian Authority. The agreement will reintroduce AMA with the EUBAM being redeployed to monitor the crossing once again. On the 1st of October Hamas handed over control of the crossings with Rafah being prepared to be opened completely by the 15th of November allowing for Gazan’s to regain access to the rest of the world.11

Until that day, as Pelham explains ‘visitors approaching Rafah can be forgiven for thinking they have stepped back in time to the 1948 Nakba’12 Haidar Eid, tells the story of his attempt to leave through Rafah which provides some tangible depiction of what leaving through Rafah has been like for the past 10 years:

‘Although I had good reasons to use the crossing and to leave Gaza, I was unsure about pressing my luck to escape, if only for a short while. Past experience has made me painfully aware that thousands of my fellow Gazans would also try to capitalize on this very rare opportunity suddenly available to us… Then reality hit us tens of thousands of people were waiting there. Children, old people, women and the worst of all, terminally ill people – all sitting under the baking hot sun of this semi-desert area… My heart sank!... The crossing itself was so tantalizing, mere meters away? And if we passed, what freedoms awaited us.’13

Education

The closure of Rafah has had a dramatic impact on education and academia in the Strip. Irfan identifies that education has historically been central to the empowerment of Palestinians.14 Being able to prove themselves to the international community that they are capable of building a thriving state of their own. Rafah’s protracted closure has impeded Gazan’s right to a decent education and thus served to limit the ambitions of many young men and women. There are nine universities in the Gaza Strip, their facilities suffer tremendously from the many restrictions and implications of the blockade. But in relation to Rafah the closure of the crossing means that universities are starved of teaching talent, cosmopolitanism and diversity which universities need to flourish. With foreign lecturers and students being denied access into Gaza it impoverishes the academic and cultural diversity of the university curriculum15 and prohibits foreign experts from sharing contemporary knowledge. Here the academic community has been disconnected from the communities in the West Bank, the Arab countries and the rest of the world impacting the entire education system, ‘which is stagnating and cannot develop’.16

Gaza not only has a lack of institutions but there is not the capacity to obtain a higher level than undergraduate degrees nor the opportunity to study certain courses like medicine. These implications mean most young people from Gaza choose to study abroad, gaining places at some of the world’s top institutions. But the perpetual closure of Gaza’s borders has resulted in thousands of students with places at foreign universities being forced to miss whole semesters. The vast majority of these students who cannot make it on time for their course are subsequently prohibited from undertaking their studies, and have to try to reapply to another university or abandon their hopes of studying abroad. An additional fallout from this has led many institutions to debate not offering places and scholarships to people from Gaza. Prospective students also carry the burden that they might encounter visa problems, or not be able to travel home to see their families throughout their studies. All of these factors that are caused by the crossings closure limit the ambitions of children growing up in the strip. A Palestinian student who missed out of the opportunity to study at three different foreign universities, perfectly encapsulates the trickledown effect this has on the rest of society:  

‘What troubles me most, however, is not my personal plight, but the effect this experience has had on my talented younger brother after watching what I had endured as an innocent and politically unaffiliated student, he has conducted that he will no longer pursue the educational dream outside Gaza he once held’17

This anecdote demonstrates the worries, stress and lack of hope young people have to take upon them in response to their feelings of entrapment. Young people make up half of Gaza’s population and the impact on them is accordingly severe.18 The blockade and closure of Rafah is justified for issues relating to security, but as a form of collective punishment it is harming young people rather than targeting Hamas or militant groups active in the Sani Peninsular.19 It is a widely agreed upon concept that education is the key to development. With many young people being dismayed from attempting to better their situation, and those who do penalised for doing so it leaves a very bleak picture for the development of Gazan society. The detrimental effect of Gazan’s denial of access to higher education is preventing them from being able to use their education to help build ‘an educated, robust and thriving society in the Gaza Strip’.20

The travel restrictions leave Palestinians feeling isolated and that they lack control over their own destiny. A psychological study in 2015 revealed that only 12.5% of Palestinians included in the study evaluated their lives as good, and only 27.1% said they enjoy their life. The research also found a significant relationship between stress and the closure of Gaza.21 People in the Strip have found it difficult to construct a viable community. Professor of Political Science at Al-Quds Jihad Hamad wrote: ‘we have become people who live only on the basics… they need to feel safety, openness, a connection with the world… I want to give, I want to contribute my skills. In Gaza today, that is impossible’22 The crossing has always been operated that people would not know if they would be allowed to pass through until their arrival at Rafah, when they arrive and they are not allowed to travel no explanation is provided.23 It is this element which causes so much mental strain. It is often understood that this way of managing the borders is a way to harass the Palestinians designed only to make life insufferable.24 Cumulatively the impact of these strains undermines the potential of Palestinians to achieve self-determination and ‘to build an adequate standard of living’25 for themselves, their families and their future generations.

Conclusion

The debate over Rafah is a political one, its closure in recent years has resulted from deadlock in peace agreements between Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian political parties. The regular opening of Rafah became the focal point for any future agreements on Gaza with the human element sometimes being neglected. The Crossing has become separated from the practicalities of it being opened and instead has become symbolic to the Palestinians for gaining control and autonomy of themselves. Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem declared: ‘we hope that handing over control would lead to a better quality of life of the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip’.26 And while this may be true it is dangerous to place too much importance to the immanent opening of the Crossing. While it can be said that the lifting of travel restrictions in and out of Gaza will alleviate some tensions, and provide some relief to the humanitarian situation we must be clear that this will not equate to a return to full freedom of movement.27 The problems that need to be addressed in Gaza run much deeper than the opening of Rafah, and although Hamas and Fatah are celebrating this recent win to permanently open the crossing it is crucial to remember that Israel as the occupying power still have ultimate control over Gaza’s borders and the fight for the right of freedom of movement does not end with Rafah. The real issues that need to be tackled in the Strip are access to crucial enmities, unemployment, education and poverty, Rafah is one element to this, it’s a start but there is much more work to be done.

 * Hannah Bowler has recently Graduated from the University of Reading with a first-class BA in History and International Relations. She has previously worked as a Researcher for the Palestinian Return Centre. Her main work has been on the subject of Colonialism and it’s impact on current events in Palestine and the wider MENA region. She has also advocated for Palestinians rights at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

(Endnotes)

1  Unwilling or Unable: Israeli Restrictions on Access to and from Gaza for Human Rights Workers. Human Rights Watch. April 2nd 2017. Available from: https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/04/02/unwilling-or-unable/israeli-restrictions-access-and-gaza-human-rights-workers [accessed 23/10/2017].

2  Universal Declaration of Human Rights. United Nations. 1948. Available from: http://www.un.org/en/udhrbook/pdf/udhr_booklet_en_web.pdf [accessed 24/10/2017].

3  Freedom of Movement: Human Rights Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Including East Jerusalem. ONHRC. February 2016. Available from: 

4  Ragson A. Egypt Opens the Crossing for the First Time in Three Months. The Jerusalem Post. August 15th 2017. Available from: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Egypt-opens-Rafah-crossing-for-first-time-in-three-months-502518 [accessed 06/10/2017].

5  Access Through Rafah Border Crossing, the Gaza Strip. UNHCR. November 2015. Available from: http://www.refworld.org/pdfid/5657ff174.pdf [accessed 25/10/2017].

6  A Guide to the Gaza Strip. Al Jazeera. 26th June 2017. Available from: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/06/guide-gaza-strip-170614124611554.html [accessed 23/10/2017].

7  Ibid.

8  Chomsky N. Pappe I. Gaza in Crisis: Refections on Israel’s War Against the Palestinians. London: Penguin; 2010: 98.

9  A Guide to the Gaza Strip. Al Jazeera. 26th June 2017. Available from: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/06/guide-gaza-strip-170614124611554.html [accessed 23/10/2017].

10  Leadman N. Rafah Crossing: who Holds the Keys? Gisha Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement. March 2009. Available from:  http://gisha.org/publication/1639 [accessed 23/10/2017].

11  Hass A. Egypt set to Reopen its Gaza Crossing on a Regular Basis in September. Haaretz. August 22nd 2017. Available from: https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium-1.808237 [accessed 24/10/2017].

12  Pelham N. Gaza’s Tunnel Phenomenon: The Untended Dynamics of Israel’s Siege. Journal of Palestinian Studies 2012;41(4): 6-31. 

13  Abdullah G. Ring K. Letters from Palestine: Palestinians Speak out About Their Lives, Their Country, and Their Power of Nonviolence. Tucson: Wheatmark; 2010.

14  Irfan A. The Loss of Education: Palestinian Refugees from Syria and the UN SDG4. Journal of Palestinian Refugee Studies 2016;6(1):21-25.

15  Leadman N. Rafah Crossing: who Holds the Keys? Gisha Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement. March 2009. Available from:  http://gisha.org/publication/1639 [accessed 23/10/2017].

16  Ibid.

17  Abdullah G. Ring K. Letters from Palestine: Palestinians Speak out About Their Lives, Their Country, and Their Power of Nonviolence. Tucson: Wheatmark; 2010.

18  Impact of the Closure of Gaza on Child Welfare. Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights. September 2017. Available from: https://lphr.org.uk/blog/impact-closure-gaza-child-welfare/ [accessed 26/10/2017].

19  Suffocating Gaza: Israeli Blockade’s Effects on Palestinians. Amnesty International. June 1st 2010. Available from: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2010/06/suffocating-gaza-israeli-blockades-effects-palestinians/ [accessed 24/10/2017].

20  Leadman N. Rafah Crossing: who Holds the Keys? Gisha Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement. March 2009. Available from:  http://gisha.org/publication/1639 [accessed 23/10/2017].

21  Thabet S. Stress, Trauma, Psychological Problems, Quality of Life and Resilience of Palestinian Families in the Gaza Strip. Available from: http://clinical-psychiatry.imedpub.com/stress-trauma-psychological-problemsquality-of-life-and-resilience-of-palestinianfamilies-in-the-gaza-strip.php?aid=7811 [accessed 23/10/2017].

22  Prof. Hamad J. In Leadman N. Rafah Crossing: who Holds the Keys? Gisha Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement. March 2009. Available from:  http://gisha.org/publication/1639 [accessed 23/10/2017].

23  Leadman N. Rafah Crossing: who Holds the Keys? Gisha Legal Centre for Freedom of Movement. March 2009. Available from:  http://gisha.org/publication/1639 [accessed 23/10/2017].

24  Chomsky N. Pappe I. Gaza in Crisis: Refections on Israel’s War Against the Palestinians. London: Penguin; 2010: 98.

25  Freedom of Movement: Human Rights Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem. UNHRC. February 2016.

26  Qassem H in Alsaafin L. Hamas Hands over Gaza Border Crossing to Palestinian Authority. Al Jazeera. Available from: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/hamas-hands-gaza-border-crossings-pa-171031190038739.html [accessed 27/10/2017].

27  Hass A. Egypt set to Reopen its Gaza Crossing on a Regular Basis in September. Haaretz. August 22nd 2017. Available from: https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/.premium-1.808237 [accessed 24/10/2017].

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