Fresh start

There is no euphoria in Gaza ahead of the disengagement -- only a hope for relief, reports Graham Usher in Khan Younis

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Palestinians met Israel's withdrawal from Gaza the way the Lebanese met Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon -- in a contest of spectacles. There are differences. In Beirut, the rallies and protests expressed genuine social constituencies, split between those opposed to Syrian hegemony and those in favour. In Gaza the victory celebrations are more factional shows of strength, squaring up to claim the "liberation".

For the Palestinian Authority and its ruling Fatah movement the demonstrations are largely oaths of loyalty to the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, and the ever rising star of civil affairs minister, Mohamed Dahlan, Israel's main Palestinian point-main for the "withdrawal".

On 13 August -- in one of the more original displays -- a flotilla of tugs and fishing boats floated around Gaza harbour under a billowing sky of Palestinian and yellow Fatah flags bearing the old/new inscription. "Today we are celebrating the liberation of Gaza and northern West Bank; tomorrow we will celebrate the liberation of Jerusalem," said Abbas.

For Hamas and Islamic Jihad the celebrations are actually military parades, testimony to their belief that it was resistance -- and only resistance -- that drove the Israelis out.

In Gaza's Jabaliya camp on the same day as the boats took sail, Hamas's entire leadership turned out to salute a "graduation ceremony" for 1,000 Hamas fighters, dressed in military fatigue, armed with RPGs. "Hamas remains committed to the choice of resistance... and rejects the idea of any single party [Fatah] monopolising the decision- making process," said Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh.

But most Palestinians are extras in these movies of their history. Their mood was better expressed as in wedding procession, wending its way through downtown Khan Younis. From one of the cars a boy dressed in a bow-tie fired a pistol dangerously near a police patrol. That is precisely where most Palestinians are at ahead of the first real Israeli withdrawal from their soil: dressed for a wedding, ready for a funeral.

And nowhere more so than Khan Younis. Of all the Palestinians' enclaves in Gaza, Khan Younis has suffered most from the settlements, due to its fatal proximity to Gush Katif. In the last five years it has had over 300 of its men, women and children killed by army fire, mostly from aeyries of the settlements. Over 900 homes have been destroyed.

It has been denied all access to its coastline and has only sporadic access to Gaza City, due to Israeli only roads that serve Gush Katif. It has had its life, lives, economy and community ravaged by an idea once described by an Israeli minister, Haim Ramon, as the "most insane" in Israel's history -- the idea that Israel could claim sovereignty over a strip of land that is home to 1.3 million Palestinians.

"We are counting the days," smiles Khan Younis' mayor, Osama Al-Fara. His municipality has ambitions for the day after disengagement. It wants to convert Gush Katif -- comprising nearly 25 per cent of municipal land -- into a motor for housing, tourist facilities and agricultural development. This will create jobs, reconstruction and, above all, hope, says Al-Fara. But it faces one obstacle -- an adversary that may be withdrawing its presence from Khan Younis but not yet its control.

"In months after the disengagement [Ariel] Sharon will go to the UN Security Council and demand it no longer define Gaza as occupied territory. Well, that cannot happen as long as Israel controls the crossing into Egypt, the sea and airport and regulates our passage to the West Bank. We will not only still be occupied; we will be starved of investment for the reconstruction. And nothing is going to be sustainable in Khan Younis, or anywhere else in Gaza, without private investment," says Al-Fara.

He admits another obstacle. For the last three years Palestinians in Khan Younis have been in thrall to a struggle not only against the settlements but also among themselves. The day before our interview Al-Fara's offices were briefly taken over by armed gunmen demanding jobs in the new dispensation. With the enormous spoils offered by settlement lands and properties could not Khan Younis descend into chaos?

Al-Fara smiles again. "For most of the Intifada the PA security forces could not deal with the militias," he says. "First, they were the resistance. Second -- some of them -- exploited the absence of law for their own ends. After the disengagement the PA will have to act. This is what the factions and the people expect -- this is the PA's challenge. In other words, after disengagement the PA will have no more excuses."

Abu Farid has no more excuses either. His house faces the vast military tower of Netzarim, a settlement staved through the very heart of Gaza. The house was built in 1997. For the last five years he doubts whether a single stone has been spared a volley from that tower or those fighters who tried again and again to pull it down. He takes a jaundiced eye to the disengagement, "a ploy by Israel to rid itself of the burden of Gaza and take the struggle to West Bank". He hopes Gaza won't descend into infighting but "after 40 years of oppression and humiliation you must expect some kind of reaction."

Still he is planting a tree outside his home -- an evergreen. Why?

"So I can return to life", he says.