From the Interior of the Prison

Tank fire, machine gun fire, and roosters crowing; explosions, more tank fire, more gun fire, and those stupid all-night roosters with no sense of timing: How Not to Sleep in the Refugee Camp at Rafah – at least if you're a visitor and listening to the "low intensity war" rage on the borders of the Gaza Strip all night still frays your nerves. Two year-old Haia and 4-year-old Sharaf sleep peacefully, unperturbed. "They got used to it," their father says. "And anyway, this is nothing."


Nothing? Any school child can tell you which noise is the tank, which is the gun, what type of gun, whether the explosion was serious or just loud, how to tell the difference between the sound of Apache and Cobra helicopters, and which planes are F-16s and which are not. I remember war novels and war movies where the seasoned soldiers would teach the new recruits how to tell what noise was what and when to worry, when to run. Kids growing up in the Gaza strip would make excellent trainers.


In addition to the military expertise of the average Gazan comes the street-wise know-how of refugee camp living: where to walk or when Not to walk in certain areas; where the latest tent-city can be found, thanks to UN help for the families whose homes are heaps of stone and twisted metals thanks to Israeli home demolition experts; which families are most in need of community help so they can eat or get medical care. Poverty is increasing everywhere. Unemployment has reached 75%. Human traffic at the weekly Saturday market in Rafah has declined noticeably because fewer goods from Egypt are allowed in causing the prices of those items that make it to rise. Fewer and fewer people can afford to buy the lowest priced goods around.