jpatokal
Oct 26, 03, 12:20 am
Cairo to Gaza on Egyptair, April 2000
Posted by request to add a note to the historical record -- GZA has been shut down for 3 years and won't be opening in the foreseeable future....
The Story
Cairo at dawn, a heavy wet fog blanketing the entire city. Vapors from a puddle of spilled petrol in the back of the are almost enough to make me retch, and the little Copt driving the car wheezes and coughs in the polluted air. In Heliopolis, the entire front half of a BMW has been shattered into fragments -- a white shape is still pinned against the steering wheel.
15 minutes to departure (my flight actually seems to be on time, al-Hamdu lillah) and so far there are all of six (6) people in the departure "lounge", if I can use such a word for a concrete hall filled with orange plastic chairs arranged in neat rows. Two kids are playing with a Chinese-made plastic toy thingamajig that bleeps out the melody of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", but with wack-... scratches between each line:
Twinkle twinkle little star
<wow! wow!>
How I wonder what you are
<whoop! wow wow! wack! wack!>
Demented. I want one!
But there ended up being a delay of two hours, since in the mornings a fog often settles on the airport (which is near the sea), and while the Palestinian Authority has bought, paid for and shipped equipment that would allow landings in inclement weather, in the name of security Israeli Customs have impounded the gear for 3 years and counting. No matter: once on board the 737, I find that I seem to have been designated an Able Passanger with Sufficient Strength and Dexterity to open the emergency door, which means I have the only economy-class seat in the plane with tons of leg room. This feels almost obscenely luxurious, but at least the seats are comfortably narrow and the armrests can't be lifted.
Once we finally took off, the EgyptAir flight itself passed uneventfully, taking all of 40 minutes with the crew squeezing in a quick round of coffee and cakes. We landed at Gaza Dahaniya airport, and waited. Nothing happened for half an hour or so. Eventually we descended to the tarmac, and waited some more. A little bus showed up, we climbed in, and after another half hour the bus started moving. The bus trundled along the heavily guarded border, stopping every now and then at checkpoints and remote-controlled gates. I counted six parallel electric and/or barbed wire fences, the land underneath undoubtedly heavily mined, and naturally lots of watchtowers to watch over it all. There is more of the same a few kilometers away on the Egyptian side of the border.
At Rafah, the luggage from the plane was plonked onto a conveyor belt that disappeared into a building. We were ordered to strip off all metallic objects, including belts, and pass through a hypersensitive metal detector while our carry-on baggage was searched. Next we went through Israeli immigration -- an almost painless process for me, considerably less so for the locals -- and then waited. An hour or so later, the luggage appeared at the other end of the belt, all bags and suitcases opened and presumably carefully examined, all out of sight. (Lose any valuables? Just try proving it.)
One more hour of thumb-twiddling later, we picked up our baggage, reboarded the bus and returned to the terminal. At the terminal there was a cursory Palestinian passport check and then I finally emerged into the harsh daylight of the Mediterranean. The 40-minute flight had taken me over 7 hours, and I didn't even get a single stamp in my passport as a souvenir. (I did, however, get an entry stamp from the Israeli border at Erez, which furnished obvious proof of having been to Gaza and resulted in a rather detailed interrogation upon departure from Israel...)
The Background
Even at best, flight schedules from Dahaniya were erratic, as Israeli fighters turned around incoming and departing jets on random pretexts (the fate of the next Cairo-Gaza flight after mine, among others). Due to the intentionally stretched-out border control measures, flights via Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport were far faster and flying to Gaza was a losing proposition both for airline and passenger. There is also a commercial angle here, as every flight to Dahaniya means more revenue to the Palestinian Authority and less revenue for Israel's flight authorities. In fact, before Oslo, it was government policy enshrined in legislation to forbid any Gazan businesses that could compete with Israeli companies -- one reason for the 60% unemployment rate.
(In case you're wondering why I chose Gaza, I needed to return to Tel Aviv a few days early but the direct flights were full, so
blissfully unaware of the complications I decided to take a little detour...)
Soon after the start of the al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, the airport was forced to shut down entirely as a means of collective punishment. In November 2001, after a terrorist attack in Haifa, Israeli troops entered the airport, bulldozed the control tower and blew up the runway.
Posted by request to add a note to the historical record -- GZA has been shut down for 3 years and won't be opening in the foreseeable future....
The Story
Cairo at dawn, a heavy wet fog blanketing the entire city. Vapors from a puddle of spilled petrol in the back of the are almost enough to make me retch, and the little Copt driving the car wheezes and coughs in the polluted air. In Heliopolis, the entire front half of a BMW has been shattered into fragments -- a white shape is still pinned against the steering wheel.
15 minutes to departure (my flight actually seems to be on time, al-Hamdu lillah) and so far there are all of six (6) people in the departure "lounge", if I can use such a word for a concrete hall filled with orange plastic chairs arranged in neat rows. Two kids are playing with a Chinese-made plastic toy thingamajig that bleeps out the melody of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", but with wack-... scratches between each line:
Twinkle twinkle little star
<wow! wow!>
How I wonder what you are
<whoop! wow wow! wack! wack!>
Demented. I want one!
But there ended up being a delay of two hours, since in the mornings a fog often settles on the airport (which is near the sea), and while the Palestinian Authority has bought, paid for and shipped equipment that would allow landings in inclement weather, in the name of security Israeli Customs have impounded the gear for 3 years and counting. No matter: once on board the 737, I find that I seem to have been designated an Able Passanger with Sufficient Strength and Dexterity to open the emergency door, which means I have the only economy-class seat in the plane with tons of leg room. This feels almost obscenely luxurious, but at least the seats are comfortably narrow and the armrests can't be lifted.
Once we finally took off, the EgyptAir flight itself passed uneventfully, taking all of 40 minutes with the crew squeezing in a quick round of coffee and cakes. We landed at Gaza Dahaniya airport, and waited. Nothing happened for half an hour or so. Eventually we descended to the tarmac, and waited some more. A little bus showed up, we climbed in, and after another half hour the bus started moving. The bus trundled along the heavily guarded border, stopping every now and then at checkpoints and remote-controlled gates. I counted six parallel electric and/or barbed wire fences, the land underneath undoubtedly heavily mined, and naturally lots of watchtowers to watch over it all. There is more of the same a few kilometers away on the Egyptian side of the border.
At Rafah, the luggage from the plane was plonked onto a conveyor belt that disappeared into a building. We were ordered to strip off all metallic objects, including belts, and pass through a hypersensitive metal detector while our carry-on baggage was searched. Next we went through Israeli immigration -- an almost painless process for me, considerably less so for the locals -- and then waited. An hour or so later, the luggage appeared at the other end of the belt, all bags and suitcases opened and presumably carefully examined, all out of sight. (Lose any valuables? Just try proving it.)
One more hour of thumb-twiddling later, we picked up our baggage, reboarded the bus and returned to the terminal. At the terminal there was a cursory Palestinian passport check and then I finally emerged into the harsh daylight of the Mediterranean. The 40-minute flight had taken me over 7 hours, and I didn't even get a single stamp in my passport as a souvenir. (I did, however, get an entry stamp from the Israeli border at Erez, which furnished obvious proof of having been to Gaza and resulted in a rather detailed interrogation upon departure from Israel...)
The Background
Even at best, flight schedules from Dahaniya were erratic, as Israeli fighters turned around incoming and departing jets on random pretexts (the fate of the next Cairo-Gaza flight after mine, among others). Due to the intentionally stretched-out border control measures, flights via Israel's Ben Gurion International Airport were far faster and flying to Gaza was a losing proposition both for airline and passenger. There is also a commercial angle here, as every flight to Dahaniya means more revenue to the Palestinian Authority and less revenue for Israel's flight authorities. In fact, before Oslo, it was government policy enshrined in legislation to forbid any Gazan businesses that could compete with Israeli companies -- one reason for the 60% unemployment rate.
(In case you're wondering why I chose Gaza, I needed to return to Tel Aviv a few days early but the direct flights were full, so
blissfully unaware of the complications I decided to take a little detour...)
Soon after the start of the al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, the airport was forced to shut down entirely as a means of collective punishment. In November 2001, after a terrorist attack in Haifa, Israeli troops entered the airport, bulldozed the control tower and blew up the runway.