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Gaza Beach, a Special Day	Tuesday, June 25
When I woke up I was already in the taxi with the boys going to the Centre for Human Rights (CHR) in Khan Younis to meet a group of French people belonging to the Civil Movement for the Protection of the Palestinian People. Unfortunately however, the coach which was expected for 8.00 was still stuck at the Abu Holi traffic lights. Someone had taken some photos and the soldiers had stopped the traffic lights and confiscated the cameras, following which all the French people had got off the coach and started negotiations to get back their cameras. After a couple of hours, at about 10.00, The French group recovered their purloined property and finally managed to pass. The three girls of the White Berets, on their return journey to Italy, had just arrived at the traffic lights which had already turned red. 10.30 The French group reach the CHR 11.00 Meeting with the mayor of Rafah 12.00 Start of the action to protect the human rights of the Palestinan people At the line of the border with Egypt the Israelis have built two security strips, the first of about 12 metres flanked by two prefabricated walls separating the two state borders; the second of about 50 metres is the security strip with the Palestinian territory. All the houses have been demolished on this strip but right in the middle of the rubble is a little building with a pump for the waste water which has the function of flushing down the drain and sewage water coming from the Palestinan houses. Unfortunately, during the demolition the septic tank was clogged up with rubble and each time the Palestinians risked going to mend the pump they were fired on by the soldiers. For some time there has been an agreement between the CHR and a spontaneous French movement on this action. The activists would position themselves between the soldiers and the workers to allow the pump to be repaired. Israeli authorities had also been informed of the action and appear to have given their assent. It should be noticed that this "shit business" is by no means a trifling matter; the pump has already been out of service for more than four months with the result that sewage was flowing from the home toilets and remaining nearby. With the heat in these parts, the flies and other nice fauna the risk of an epidemic has been increasing every day. At 12.00 we enter the deserted security strip - more than two dozen Europeans holding French and German passports and we Italians; two from Operation Colomba (Dove) and Fabio, Luca and myself of the White Berets. A little more than a dozen Palestinians are also in the group including workmen, journalists and CHR officials. We walk in a compact group towards the pump with the Egyptian garrison building behind us, the pump in front and beyond the pump in the distance the tower with the Israeli flag. Once the pump has been reached the internationalists form a line placing themselves between the Israeli tower and the pump and immediately the Palestinans' mechanical scraper with the driver and a Frenchman on top set about levelling the area and the workmen get down to the job. The adults inside the houses facing the strip filled with rubble have to work hard to hold back the children who are excited by this extraordinary novelty. One of them leans out too far from the tumbledown walls and heaps of rubble separating the houses from the security strip so the soldiers start firing. None of us moves, we show our passports and remain with an arm upraised waving our Bordeaux University booklets as a unique guarantee of immunity. Among the French there is a naturalised Palestinian woman with a hand-kerchief on her head, the classical covering for women round here. There is also a Moroccan woman wearing the traditional blouse of her country. A short time passes and a few more shots and then a clattering armoured vehicle arrives in a cloud of sand and stops in front of us and the pump. The workmen continue their work imperturbably. Two Frenchmen move to a few metres from the vehicle holding up their passports like a flag, motionless like statues of salt while the shots get closer. Some lose their initial sense of security and crouch down. A green helmet pops up from behind the last wall. It is an Egyptian border guard who stays observing the scene for the whole period. Then a hand emerges from a slit in the vehicle's turret but from its movement you cannot understand what is meant (come here or be off). One of the workmen exchanges a few words with the armour-encased officer and then imperturbably continues to shovel the shit. One of the workmen climbs onto a lamppost to mend it, there in the middle between us and the pump. We all look at him and hold our breath. In the meantime one of the CHR men has told me that the mayor is on the phone with the Israelis and they are coming to an agreement for the workmen to be able to finish their work in peace. I barely manage to control my fear and can see Fabio and Luca still with the others at their place in the first line-up, still motionless under a sun which is now at its zenith, not a breath of air, even the shadow seems to have disappeared. I regain courage and walk towards them looking carefully where I place my feet in that tangle of floors and lighting supports swallowed up by rubble and rods of the reinforced concrete sticking out everywhere. I reach the boys and, to lower tension and regain courage we start singing Bella Ciao to the applause of those present. A little later the tension slackens and trays with boiling tea and iced cola arrive. An hour later and lunch, rice with meat, also arrives and so the human shield action becomes a picnic and then an anticlimax until 17.00 when the repairs are completed and we all return from where we came. Before returning to Khan Younis the bus stops at the house of one of the families of the six Palestinians killed the morning before at around 8.00. They were travelling in a taxi on the outskirts of Rafah, probably going to work. One of them was wanted. Two Apache helicopters roared in over the horizon and one fired an air to ground missile at the taxi immediately killing the six inside. More than a dozen occupants of cars in front of and behind the taxi and passers-by were wounded, some very seriously who will die in the hospital in Rafah in the coming hours. The burn mark of the car can still be seen on the asphalt, a shoe and a big hole from which sand beneath the asphalt has been dug out. After the condolence visit we leave the French and return by taxi to Khan Younis. There I leave Fabio and Luca who are going home while I join the vigil of the unemployed workers who invited me to take part in the funerals of the six Rafah victims. There are two buses leaving for Rafah. I am in the taxi of the coordinator of the vigil of Khan Younis. When we reach Rafah the workers join their companions of the local vigil and all together in a procession we go to the different houses in mourning, where we sit on chairs in long rows while one of the family passes by to offer a little Bedouin coffee and some dates. After half a dozen coffees and a dozen dates we return to Khan Younis. Home at last! Twelve hours have passed since I woke up this morning in the taxi but it seems it is not yet finished. The three girls of the White Berets, Barbara, Caria and Maria Ida are still stuck at the traffic lights at Abu Holi which have not changed in the mean-time. It has been dark for awhile when Fabio and I arrive in a taxi to fetch the girls. When we reach the infamous traffic lights we see a sea of cars and lorries which have been parked there the whole day. Some are preparing for the night others praying on a prayer mat; hundreds of people imprisoned in an inextricable crush of metal and sweating human bodies and crying children. The only light is the full moon ineffably looking down on the human misery. We have fetched the girls and are returning home in our taxi. Another day tomorrow. Some of the photos of the "human shield" taken by Fabio can be seen on www.inventati.org/liberapalestina/rafah2506.htm Greetings, Maurizio
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