By Stuart Littlewood*

13 December 2007

As the West and Israel prepared to act out their pantomime at Annapolis, Stuart Littlewood joined a party of priests on an unusual mission ‑ to bring moral support to the Christian community in Gaza and their Muslim neighbours, all suffering horribly under the Israeli siege.

Traffic into Gaza through the smart new border “facility” at Erez is down to a trickle since Israel branded this tiny Palestinian seaside enclave a “hostile entity” and imposed a blockade even harsher than before.

We came to Gaza to visit Father Manuel Musallam, who ministers to his flock, runs an excellent school against all odds and is revered as a local hero. If he leaves Gaza the Israelis won't allow him back, so for nine years he has stayed put, isolated. When he heard we were coming, said a colleague, he burst into tears.

After a noisy arrival at breakneck speed with police sirens blaring Palestinian-style, our visit quickly turned into a media circus and an unlikely cavalcade of priests, interpreters, cameramen and armed police took off to inspect the Rafah crossing into Egypt, now closed indefinitely, and then followed the barrier down to the sea and the coast road back to the city.

I noted the deserted beaches and disused fishing boats. Israel has banned fishing off the Gaza coast, ruined the livelihood of 3000 fishermen and deprived local people of a proper diet. Boats defying the ban are fired on.

The Gaza Strip is sealed off from the outside world with an Israeli fence guarded by watchtowers, snipers, tanks, armoured bulldozers and drones. Israel pretended to withdraw two years ago but still controls Gaza's airspace, coastal waters and airwaves. It has the place bottled up like a prison and makes frequent incursions.

Much of it is blasted to rubble but many fine buildings survive. So does the defiant community. One can easily imagine Gaza blossoming into a coastal paradise, but right now the strangulated economy is in free-fall and, for 1.5 million ordinary folk, life is hell. Unemployment stands at 65 per cent , and 80 per cent live below the poverty line.

Fuel is running out, so are basics like washing powder. Shattered infrastructure and food shortages mean serious public health problems. Power cuts disrupt hospitals and vital drugs cannot be kept refrigerated. Thousands look death in the face as medical care collapses.

A friend emailed: "Today in Gaza we have no cement to build graves for those who die."

We were also there to show solidarity with the whole population, Muslim and Christian, against the crippling economic sanctions that have led to this crisis.

According to the Ministry of Health, 450 cancer patients (35 per cent of them children) are forbidden to leave Gaza for treatment or surgery. Many go without medication because cancer drugs are blocked or delayed at the border. There's no radiotherapy.

Four hundred renal failure patients should be getting dialysis three times a week but 20 of the 69 machines have broken down ‑ no spares ‑ and treatment has been cut to twice a week.

Four hundred cardiac patients suffer unnecessarily owing to shortage of drugs.

Spares for therapeutic and diagnostic equipment cannot get through.

Hospitals are completely out of many essential medical and psychiatric drugs, X-ray bags and sterilization bags. They are dangerously short of dressings, other disposables and cleaning materials. When the two weeks' supply of anaesthetics is finished the operating theatres will close.

Fuel stocks may last 15 days with luck, but there's no patient food until MAP UK aid arrives.

Physicians for Human Rights - Israel have been trying to bring the critically ill out of Gaza for proper treatment, but are often refused. So they die an agonizing death. A thousand patients ‑ advanced kidney and cancer cases and victims of Israeli air strikes ‑ need transferring immediately.

Channel 4 News in the UK screened a shocking report about how the sick are blackmailed. If they agree to inform on relatives they are allowed to cross the border. If not they can "stay in Gaza and die". Some 33 have done so in the last month.

The Red Cross repeatedly reminds Israel of its obligation under international law and Geneva Conventions to ensure that humanitarian supplies reach Palestinian civilians. However, I'm told that drugs purchased from sales of my book Radio Free Palestine cannot be delivered in the normal way and will have to be smuggled in somehow.

The European Parliament in October passed a resolution calling on Israel to lift the blockade and guarantee humanitarian aid and essential supplies of electricity and fuel. Israel responded by declaring Gaza a “hostile entity” and announced more sanctions.

As guests in the community we were invited for coffee at the House of Fatah and the residence of Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya. It was a relief to see that relations between religious and political factions are friendly and good humoured at such a difficult time.

Taking our leave was double torture: the wrench of saying farewell to brave people the West is cruelly persecuting, and the prospect of once again running the gauntlet of Erez's high-tech security, which this time took three hours while Qassam rockets flew over and exploded on the Israeli side. They seldom do any damage but indiscriminate targeting of civilians by both sides is deplorable.

Gaza was formerly under British mandate, which is surely reason enough to feel a special responsibility. In better days a kindlier British government might have sent warships to land supplies on Gaza's empty beach and lift the siege. Indeed, there are many things a kindlier British government might have done to set the Palestinians free.

How different now: the appalling situation, created with Britain's help, is designed to force democratically elected Hamas into submission and bring a broken and demoralized community meekly under Abbas's puppet regime.

Meanwhile, the terrorizing and displacement of Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land continues. It remains a mystery to me why our largely Christian (but increasingly Muslim-inclusive) democracy slavishly supports the Middle Eastern ethnocracy that's doing this.

*Stuart Littlewood is a businessman-turned-writer from Norfolk, England. He recently published a book entitled Radio Free Palestine about the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. See details on www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk