‘Those who’ve suffered least compromise least’

Mary Wakefield takes a postwar tour through Gaza and surveys a psychological landscape warped by conflict and suffering — and hear whispers of a further Israeli incursion

The border control at Erez, separating Israel from Gaza, was built in a happier age. It looks more like an airport than a checkpoint, a vast glass hangar designed with streams of Palestinian commuters in mind. Only a handful have made it through in the two years since Hamas took over. Now, two months after Israel’s 22-day war (Operation Cast Lead), there’s barely a soul in sight. One vicar outside, perspiring in the car park; one girl soldier inside checking passports. After that, just an eerie unmanned security process. Wait. Proceed to a steel holding pen. Wait. Walk down to a revolving zoo-style gate. Wait. Wait. Despair. Yell: ‘Hello?! Anybody?’ Then another door, another corridor, through a warehouse to a turnstile then out, abruptly, into no-man’s-land.

It takes a few seconds to adjust to what looks like the aftermath of apocalypse — Lego-lumps of broken concrete, pylons, a deserted, bomb-pocked track. It’s like a metaphor for the whole peace process: abandoned by Israel, whose Prime Minister designate, Bibi Netanyahu, sees no need for a separate Palestinian state; shunned by the Islamists, whose guru Osama reinforced the party line last week: ‘We must not tolerate the Gaza holocaust or collaborate with the Crusader–Zionist alliance.’ Ignored even by America, who finds it easiest now to throw hush money at both sides. As I reach the Palestinian checkpoint (three men drinking mint tea) and meet Hamada, my guide for the day, I think about a conversation with an Israeli official in a dark bar in Jerusalem: ‘The truth is, we can live with Gaza like this. It doesn’t have to be a one-state or a two-state solution, there’s a third state: occupation.