no mans land in the centre.
They had arrived at Rafah at 9am when the border had opened. The Egyptians currently controlled the border and only allowed five to seven hundred Palestinians in and out per day. The border was only open on five days of the week. They had entered the small airport style terminal building and had handed over their passports and Egyptian permit letters. It had taken nearly an hour for these to be authenticated. Hutchinson had become frustrated by the delay and got annoyed. Dennis had sat with Natalie with his baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, presumably sleeping. Hutchinson got further annoyed at the noisy, smelly, local people around him. One small boy had decided to stand in front of the American archaeologist and stare while he picked his nose and put his fingers in his mouth. Hutchinson looked at the parents who were also staring at him. Finally he could take no more and he shooed the child away. The parents continued to stare.
Finally after another hour and a half their names were called out and Hutchinson jumped to his feet. They joined the queue of pedestrians and got their passports stamped with their Egyptian exit stamps. Once outside they climbed aboard the waiting coach that drove them to the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing. They had left the coach and entered the building. Hutchinson had stopped at the door to look back as Natalie went on in.
“Congratulations,” Dennis patted him on the back, ”You’ve just left Egypt. Welcome to Palestine.”
“To tell you the truth Pete. It’s a lot scarier than I thought it was going to be. Are we going to be alright? ”
“Trust me. I lived here for four years.”
“Only four?” Hutchinson asked. He couldn’t imagine surviving four weeks.
“Yeah I covered the Gaza war in December 2008.”
“The Gaza war? What was that?”
“It was a three week conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants.”
“What was it about?”
“Palestinian militants were firing rockets into southern Israel and hitting civilian targets. Israel responded with operation ‘cast lead’. They attacked police stations, military targets and also political and administrative institutions. On January 3 2009 Israel began a ground invasion. A UN mission headed by Richard Goldstone accused both sides of crimes against humanity and following international criticism for the growing number of casualties, Israel withdrew on January 21.”
“How many were killed Pete?”
Dennis had covered the story and the figures had shocked him.
“Thirteen Israelis.”
“Is that all? How many Palestinians?”
“Over fourteen hundred.”
A policeman standing nearby overheard their conversation and he now turned and stared in their direction.
“Listen we’d better shut up. No more politics from now on okay. They’re a bit touchy about it.”
“A bit?”
“Very then.”
They caught up to Natalie who was at a table having her luggage searched.
“What were you two talking about over there?” She’d seen the policeman’s scowl.
“Don’t ask.”
Natalie watched as the border guard took a long time in rummaging through her underwear, too long for her liking. She reached towards her personal items but froze as he barked at her in Arabic and shook his head at her.
“What is he looking for?” she asked Dennis.
“Restricted items. Alcohol and pornography mainly.”
“That’s just great isn’t it?” Hutchinson whispered into the journalist’s ear, “We’re being checked by a terrorist organisation. Shouldn’t it be the other way round.”
Dennis rounded on him.
“Jim. From now on you really need to be very careful with what you say. Believe me you don’t want to get arrested for making political statements out here. Your government would be unable to help and you’re making me really nervous.”
Finally the guard finished with Natalie’s hold-all and he grinned at her as she took it back. He jerked his thumb at her towards another table where another customs man waited to ask her routine questions about her visit. She bit her lip at the obscenity that she wanted to shout at him and went to the next table. The first guard watching her bottom in her jeans as she walked away. Dennis and Hutchinson were processed in turn and then finally the three of them stepped outside. Their land rover was waiting for them, itself having received a thorough going over. Hutchinson had brought along some cases that had fragile archaeological artefacts on them and he was annoyed to see that they’d been opened also. He checked the contents and then resealed them.
“What are they?” Dennis had asked back in Alexandria before they had left.
“You just never know when they’ll come in handy,” was the reply.
Now the