Paul McCann: But the occupation is far from over yet…

Opinion

There is a Bedouin village - breezeblock shanties built on sand dunes - in the north of the Gaza Strip that has been overlooked by the Army watchtowers of the Jewish settlement of Nisanit.

On most nights during the intifada, soldiers in these watchtowers fired down into the alleys of the village, keeping everyone hemmed into their homes at night.

There were many randomly firing watchtowers surrounding the Israeli settlements in Gaza. They have killed hundreds of Palestinians, both militant and innocent, and are hated by the local population.

Their removal this week, with the settlements themselves, will rightly be a moment of celebration.

But just because the most visible and oppressive signs of the Israeli occupation will be gone, no one should be under the illusion that Gaza will cease to be the world'slargest prison camp.

Last week the Israeli Cabinet decided it would maintain troops on the border between Gaza and Egypt for the foreseeable future - along the so-called Philadelphia Corridor.

The same Cabinet meeting decided that Israel must continue to control who enters and exits Gaza through Egypt and proposed a new border crossing where Israel, Gaza and Egypt meet.

The Cabinet also decided it would allow Gaza to have three miles of territorial waters - after that Israel would control the sea. It had already been decided that Israel will continue to control Gaza's airspace.

Earlier this year, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the guardian of international humanitarian law, sent the Israeli Government a confidential position paper making clear that the removal of the Israeli troops and settlers from Gaza will not end the occupation.

The paper stated: "Israel will retain significant control over the Gaza Strip, which will enable it to exercise key elements of authority. Thus ... it seems at this stage the Gaza Strip will remain occupied for the purposes of international humanitarian law."

Why this matters is made clear in the disengagement resolution passed by the Israeli Government last summer.

That states: "The completion of the [disengagement] plan will serve to dispel claims regarding Israel's responsibility for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."

If it is the occupying power, then in law Israel has very specific responsibility for the welfare of the population of Gaza. If the occupation is seen to have ended, then it can wash its hands of all 1.3 million of them.

At the moment Israel talks of improving conditions at the notorious Erez crossing from Gaza into Israel, where thousands of Palestinian cheap labourers are held in pens for hours before they can get into Israel to work.

But in the longer term it seems Israel wants to lock up Gaza and throw away the key.

Shaul Mofaz, the Minister of Defence, and Ehud Olmert, the Deputy Prime Minister, have both said no Palestinian workers will be allowed into Israel from 2008. The wording of the disengagement bill states there are to be no labourers "in the longer term".

At the G8 summit the international community promised to invest $4.4 billion in Gaza. But that money will do little to improve life or create permanent jobs for people without access to the outside world.

If Gaza is to feel the benefits of disengagement, the fishermen need to be able to fish, merchants to travel and import, and crucially, after 38 years of enforced integration with Israel's economy, labourers will still need to work on the building sites of Tel Aviv and Ashkelon.

Otherwise the watchtowers of Gaza will only have moved a few hundred metres, and no doubt will soon fire down once more on Palestinians - militant and innocent alike.

* Paul McCann was spokesman for the UN's Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza from 2001-2005.