Gazans penned in poverty

AL-MAWASI, Gaza Strip — Trapped between Jewish settlements and the Mediterranean, the Palestinians of al-Mawasi are struggling to survive.

An Israeli security fence meant to separate Jews from Palestinians has folded the roughly 1,600 families of al-Mawasi into the settlement bloc of 6,000 Jews, and tighter security enforced during 4 years of conflict has effectively cut them off from their relatives, jobs and markets.

Some have moved away to find work, attend school or get specialized health treatment. Many who stayed live off foreign aid.

Although many Palestinians in Gaza — an impoverished coastal plain and one of the most crowded areas in the world — eagerly await Israel’s withdrawal from the territory this summer, few are as desperate for it as the people of the al-Mawasi region, crammed into a sandy strip 8 miles long and a half-mile wide.

“We’re stuck in a large prison. It’s very frustrating. We can’t go anywhere, we can’t do anything. We can’t work,” said laborer Hamad Zourab, 26, who said he hasn’t left al-Mawasi in three years.

The farmers and fishermen here once made a comfortable living. Others worked in the nearby Palestinian towns of Khan Younis and Rafah, in Israel itself, or in the settlement bloc called Gush Katif.

But after violence flared in 2000, the Palestinians here suddenly found themselves penned in as Israel enforced tight restrictions on their movements to prevent attacks.

Fishermen needed permission every time they took out their boats, and fishing hours were severely restricted.

The catch often got held up for days in unrefrigerated trucks at an Israeli army checkpoint at the edge of al-Mawasi. Many fish rotted, and those that made it through the checkpoint had to be transferred to a truck on the other side of the fence, increasing transportation and labor costs. Many fishermen put down their nets and found work in the settlements.

Farmers also lost much of their crop during long waits in the hot sun at the checkpoint.

Laborers from al-Mawasi no longer could reach their jobs in Israel, and others were fired from their jobs in the settlements because of new security rules. Those who worked in Gaza’s Palestinian towns had trouble crossing through the security fence, and even more trouble crossing back.

Amina Laham, 40, said she once went shopping in Khan Younis, less than a mile away, and was stuck there for 20 days.

Even getting U.N. food aid has been a struggle.

Under restrictions imposed during the conflict, aid had to be delivered to Khan Younis, then trucked — at the recipients’ expense — to the checkpoint, where it was reloaded onto new trucks and sent into al-Mawasi, said Soren Matz of the U.N. Relief and Works Administration.

Only in mid-April, with a drop in tension brought on by an Israeli-Palestinian truce, did Israel allow the first truckload of flour, lentils, rice, cooking oil and milk powder to be driven directly into al-Mawasi, Mr. Matz said.

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