A Palestinian protester uses a slingshot to throw stones at Israeli forces during clashes this month along the border with Israel, east of Gaza City. Photos / Washington Post
A Palestinian protester uses a slingshot to throw stones at Israeli forces during clashes this month along the border with Israel, east of Gaza City. Photos / Washington Post
Every Friday for the past month, thousands of Palestinians have surged to Gaza's border fence with Israel in a show of anger and defiance, some throwing stones and petrol bombs, others simply to be there.
Demonstrators say they want to challenge the loss of their ancestral homes to Israel 70 years ago. But a stream of men who risk their lives - more than 30 have been shot dead by Israeli soldiers - also despair at their mounting economic woes.
"Young people have nothing to lose," said 31-year-old Mohammed Sukkar, a few hundred metres from the boundary fence on the first day of protests last month as the crowd retreated after pops of gunfire. Sukkar is unemployed and says he is hard pressed to feed his six children.
Across the 360 sq km territory, Gazans are struggling to finance their daily lives. Young people - unable to pay for weddings or homes of their own - are delaying marriage, figures show, while health officials say suicide, once virtually unheard of in Gaza, is on the rise.
Universities say students are dropping out because they cannot afford the fees. At the Islamic University in Gaza City, a third of the students did not re-enroll this semester. Graduates have little hope of finding work in their specialised fields.
Unemployment in Gaza is nearly 50 per cent, and 68 per cent of those between the ages of 20 and 24 are jobless, according to figures from the Palestine Trade Centre.
The Gaza Strip's economy has been crippled by more than a decade-long blockade by Israel, which maintains tight controls on trade and movement in and out of the territory, citing security considerations. But Gazans are also frustrated with the territory's rulers, the Hamas organization, for its failure to provide basic services, and at the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) for cutting the salaries of its Gaza employees.
The United Nations is warning that something has got to give. Even Israeli security officials have sounded an alarm in recent months, warning that a humanitarian crisis could set off an explosion of violence, putting Israel itself at risk.
"We are on the edge of economic collapse," said Judge Mohammed Nofal, sorting through a pile of case files in his courtroom in central Gaza, where plaintiffs and accused debtors shuffle in and out to have their financial cases heard.
Nofal's courtroom, nothing more than a small office stacked with files, provides a glimpse into Gaza's economic hardships. From behind his desk, he hears about 20 cases a day and rules on another 80 just from the paperwork.
Palestinians help a woman suffering from tear gas during clashes.
Nofal, one of two financial judges in the Gaza court, says he heard 12,000 cases last year, up 50 per cent from a year earlier. The value of cheques bounced in the territory surged to US$112 million last year, according to the Palestine Monetary Authority. In 2016, the figure was US$62 million.
Desperate for small loans, Gazans seek credit wherever they can, Nofal said. Often, for instance, people turn to electronics stores that offer products on credit, signing up to buy televisions or washing machines on installment plans, then immediately selling those appliances to get cash.
When they fail to pay their creditors, a domino effect of defaults is triggered, Nofal said.
Nabil Abu Afash, 58, used to sell furniture on installment. But customers stopped paying him and he had no way to recoup the losses, he said. He sold his house to cover US$90,000 of his own debt and now owes rent to a landlord.
Nofal said prison is a last resort. But he signed 20 arrest warrants on his desk that day.
Everyone is feeling the pinch, he said, acknowledging that his own salary was cut by the local government by 60 per cent to US$800 a month.
The only solution is for Israel to give Gaza residents permits to leave the strip and seek employment outside, he said.
Employees at Gaza court check the files of outstandingly financial issues in Gaza City.
Beleaguered Gazans do not blame only Israel; pressure is building against Palestinian leaders, too.
"It's because of Hamas," Ahmed Hamouda, a 25-year-old worker on Gaza's seafront, said without missing a beat. "This is the reality. We are fed up."
Gaza is suffering because of Hamas's isolation from the rest of the world, he said. The group is considered a terrorist organisation by Israel, the United States and the European Union, and it has been increasingly ostracised within the Middle East.
While Hamas's relationship with Egypt has warmed somewhat in recent months, the group's fortunes took a dive when the Muslim Brotherhood was ousted from power in Egypt in 2013. Since then, Egypt has shut down smuggling tunnels connecting Egypt and Gaza that had generated taxes for Hamas and breathed some life into Gaza's economy.
The PA in the West Bank has cut wages for its employees in Gaza to squeeze Hamas, a rival political force.
As economic pressure mounts, Hamas has tried to hand over the burden of administering the strip to the PA, headed by Mahmoud Abbas. But talks to mend a long-standing rift have failed, with Hamas ultimately unwilling to give up its control over security in Gaza. It has, however, handed over the main border crossing with Israel, ceding with that control the taxes collected there.
With Hamas cornered and unable to provide basic services, analysts speculated that another war with Israel could be imminent as the militant group sought a way to divert attention from the internal crisis.
The idea for the weekly protests, dubbed the "March of Return," has been widely attributed to Palestinian activist Ahmad Abu Artema, who disavowed any political affiliation and said he believes in a one-state solution to the conflict, an arrangement in which Palestinians are given rights alongside Israelis in a democratic state.
He says the "hardship of Gaza" spurred the "revolutionary step" of peacefully protesting against Israel's occupation and the loss of Palestinian land when Israel was created in 1948.
Artema said it was important for the protests to have the backing of the political parties that rule Gaza. "We cannot deny them," he said. "They are part of society."
But for Hamas, the march - however it came about - came at the right moment.
"They decided, I wouldn't say to hijack the march, I'd say to lead the march," said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science at Gaza's Al-Azhar University. The aim was to deflect attention to Israel "instead of anger and frustration building up against Hamas in Gaza."
"Hamas has realised very late that in military confrontation we lose," Abusada said. "They are not quitting the military resistance. They are trying to use nonviolent resistance alongside."
Israel, however, argues that the protests are in no way peaceful, calling them a cover for Hamas to carry out attacks. Israeli officials blame the Palestinians for hostile activity at the border, including gunfire and the planting of explosives by militants.
Ahmed Yousef, a former senior adviser to the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, said the demonstrations have provided needed relief.
"We are a little bit happier than before," Yousef said. "We can see something with this demonstration that the issue of Palestine is seen by the whole world."
Protest organisers say they hope to sustain the demonstrations until at least mid-May.
The numbers of protesters, though, are declining with the passing weeks, and the toll of the demonstrations continues to rise. More than 1500 Palestinians have been shot.
