BEIT HANOUN, Gaza Strip, 26 June 2003 — The Gaza Strip’s main north-south axis, totally impassable in parts and under heavy Israeli guard along its length, is one of the main sticking points in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on the future security control of the territory.
For several days, the two sides have been examining a deal whereby the Israeli Army would pull out of the reoccupied northern Gaza Strip and the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem if the Palestinians take full security responsibility.
The Palestinians want the Israeli Army to hand over complete control of the road, known as the Saladin highway, but the Israeli daily Haaretz yesterday quoted Gen. Doron Almog, who heads the military region which includes Gaza, as saying such a move would be a “recipe for disaster”.
In recent months, the army intensified its activity in the Gaza Strip and created “mini security zones” along the 50-km road, to protect nearby Jewish settlements.
Soldiers manning these positions have loose rules of engagement and the road has been the site of frequent incidents, leading to many deaths, mainly Palestinians.
To set up the small buffer zones around the settlements and their by-pass roads, the Israeli Army razed dozens of houses and uprooted acres of trees and farmland, while checkpoints effectively cut the Gaza Strip into three.
At the northern end of the highway, around Beit Hanoun, from where the Hamas group frequently fires home-made rockets into Israel, only military vehicles are allowed to circulate.
The road surface and the pavements have been torn up, and some 30 houses pulled down on each side. Children play in the sandy soil near the menacing tanks, while their parents tell of their fears.
A mother of seven named Hasna said that when night falls she dare not show a light, because “Israeli soldiers shoot at us.” She has to cook the evening meal on a wood fire during the day. “After 7:30 p.m. We cannot even go outside,” she added.
Hani, a 33-year-old carpenter, must walk two kilometers every day to his work in the industrial zone at the main Erez crossing point between Israel and the Gaza Strip. “We have to walk in front of the tanks and their guns,” he said, his face covered with dust after his walk.
“Every morning I say good-bye to my wife and three children without knowing if anything will happen to us.”
“We face death all the time, while we want peace and we want security,” he added.
Beit Hanoun’s mayor, Ibrahim Hamad, said the Israelis were responsible for a “humanitarian disaster.”
“Most of the people around here have no water or electricity,” he said, accusing the army of destroying electricity transformers and water pipes and tearing up some 250 hectares of crops. At the other end of the highway at Rafah, a frequent target of Israeli incursions, the Palestinians want the Israelis to keep the crossing point into Egypt permanently open and reopen the international airport.
