Four years after Gaza International Airport's sole runway and control tower were demolished by Israeli F-16s, one Palestinian man remembers the ghostly terminal's better days and waits patiently for their return. "This airport was the symbol of the Palestinians' independence and freedom. It was our dream. All we are waiting for is the green light to rebuild and start again," said Ghazi Gharib, who heads Palestinian Airlines' communications for the site.
The international airport in southern Gaza, near the town of Rafah on the Egyptian border, was opened in 1998 and was closed by Israel in 2001 following the outbreak of the Palestinian uprising.
Still, each day of the work week Gharib comes to work at the airport along with some 500 other employees who are paid by the Palestinian Authority. They take up their posts knowing they will have nothing to do all day.
"They wait. They hope. They are on stand-by," said Gharib with a grin.
On a recent Friday, the Muslim day of rest, only a few Palestinian police officers could be seen within the confines of the terminal. In charge of maintaining security for the site, they drank tea to pass the long hours.
The airport's doctor, seemingly forgotten, watched television in the infirmary.
Gharib usually keeps himself busy by making sure the buildings are well-maintained and verifying that everyone is where they should be.
But mostly, he is also waiting for the airport to get back to operational capacity, a notion that is at the mercy of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas has pressed Israel to let the airport reopen once Israel completed its withdrawal from the occupied Gaza Strip this summer, but no concrete agreement has been made.
"As soon as the accord is concluded, we will get to work," said Gharib. "We need six months and 20 million dollars."
The airport cost about 70 million dollars to build, and was serviced by Palestinian Airlines which had two Fokker-50 aircraft and one Boeing 727 - all donated - the year it opened.
Gharib considers the airport his "baby", and knows every important date in its short history, and every official visit by celebrities and leaders since the day the airport was built to the day it was forced to close.
He rummages in a large envelope and pulls out a bundle of photographs, including shots of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat greeting former US president Bill Clinton in 1998, Arafat meeting former Spanish premier Jose Maria Aznar on the runway, and the first-ever Palestinian flight taking off toward Mecca.
Construction began on the airport after the 1993 Oslo accords were signed in a bid to restore Middle East peace.
The airport functioned primarily as a hub for Arafat when he took trips to other countries.
But when the Israelis destroyed the airport, "all our dreams were stopped cold. We had projected that by 2005 we'd have flights to Paris, Frankfurt and New York," Gharib said.
The tedium of another empty day is broken when a bus full of youngsters pulls in. Waving flags, they flood the halls which are decorated with photographs of so-called martyrs and fill the terminal with their animated chatter.
"The airport is the only place in Rafah to visit," said Abu Mahmud, a security guard.
"People here have been under a lot of pressure for years, so we let them come in as a distraction, and it breaks the monotony," he said, adding that visits like this take place just about every day.
I love this airport," Mahmud said. "But I want it to start operating again quickly. It should not become a playground."
Partly Facetious: Bush can be absolved of his sins and stupidity
ARTICLE: "Iraq is Bush's albatross."
"Indeed. And his Poodle's."
"Actually more for the Poodle than Bush. People argue that Bush has a lower IQ than his Poodle and that he is more susceptible to the neo-cons around him."
"And people do absolve Bush from the sins of his decisions."
"Sins or stupidity?"
"Sins when you see how many have died and continue to die - both Iraqis and Americans... I guess stupidity when you think about their preparations for after winning the war."
"And the one thing everyone was agreed he went in for didn't work out."
"If you mean getting his revenge for the way Saddam treated his father than in some small measure he may feel that the war did work out."
"No, I meant the oil...oil was the main attraction and his occupation of Iraq has not even ensured low oil prices in America. So I guess his own people are extremely angry at him for that."
"That's not his fault!"
"Oh, you think the fault is with the Iraqi insurgents! I don't think anybody, not even the Evangelicals in the US who voted Bush to power, blame the insurgents any more. It's all part and parcel of lack of planning about how to deal with the people of Iraq after the occupation."
"Yes that is true."
"Is Bush still linking the war with terrorism?"
"Has to now. That is the only rationale left to him."
"I see and as you said there is Poodle who had the best performing economy ever in history, people were happy, content, race relations were amicable with a few flare-ups but nothing major, and the people of Britain thought he was a good PM and no one the conservatives could throw in the ring could come even close to beating Poodle, and then along came Bush."
"Indeed. And now his legacy would be a focus on Iraq and how not to go into wars with US Presidents with low IQs and..."
"And a lot of neo-cons around him."
"Indeed."
Comments
Comments are closed.