Thursday, January 6, 2011

Gaza on the edge of no return


Amira Hass
New Statesman

"........In Gaza slang, the drone is referred to as zanana. "There are three kinds of zan­ana," a low-ranking Hamas official told me shortly after the end of the 2008-2009 offensive. "One watches over us and photographs every move, every person; the second fires missiles at us . . ." He paused, then added with typical Gazan drollness: "And the third kind? Its whole purpose is to annoy us, to drive us crazy." And he expertly mimicked the humming sound made by the latest word in postmodern warfare.

The zanana isn't always heard or seen but you know it's there because of the disruptions to television broadcasts. It has been a central component in the process of turning Gaza into a vast panopticon, a detention camp under constant supervision and increasingly invisible control. Every move is photographed, documented and transferred on to computer screens in control rooms populated by young Israeli men and women who, with a few keyboard strokes, turn the zanana from voyeuristic, annoying objects into the lethal kind. The footage is backed up by old-fashioned verbal information gathered by various mechanisms of the occupation, primarily the Israeli Civil Administration and the Shin Bet, which are responsible for every civilian document (identity cards, travel permits, promissory notes for goods) and are assisted by a network of collaborators.

In the days leading up to the offensive, people noticed more persistent humming. They grew more anxious - and rightly so. Now every increase in the sound reawakens fears of another all-out attack. It's been two years, and even a thunderstorm or a slammed door can stir up the sense of dread inside Gaza....

“In Israel they were living in a virtual reality, believing there was an actual war going on in Gaza," said some of the soldiers who took part in the offensive, whom I met through Breaking the Silence. They very quickly discovered that, contrary to what they had been told by their commanders, Hamas was not waging an intense or determined war against them. A Palestinian security man told me there had been a conscious decision in Hamas not to sacrifice its finest combatants in such a lopsided war. The organisation was well aware that it could not deliver the goods it had promised the Palestinian public for two years - that is, "surprises in warfare".

Still, immediately the offensive ended, Hamas declared victory. "In 1967 Israel subdued all the Arab armies in six days, but it could not conquer the Gaza Strip from us even after three weeks," its spokespeople said. But people in Gaza preferred to quote an old man who courageously proclaimed on television: "One more victory like this and all of Gaza will be wiped out."

An officer who broke the silence told me that he felt as though he had taken part in a military exercise using live fire, whose aim was to improve and upgrade operational commu­nications between Israeli ground forces and the Israeli air force. As more preparation for wars to come, perhaps?"

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