Palestinian children lay on the ground in protest to demand from Israel the reopening of the Rafah crossing

RAFAH – She was only steps away from returning home to the Gaza Strip to attend her brother’s wedding coming all the way from Morocco when she got stuck on the Rafah crossing point due to a crippling 17-day-old Israeli closure, the longest of its kind.

“I went overnight on foot to the barbed wire surrounding the terminal and burst into tears that I was deprived from attending my brother’s wedding day,” depressed Majda Salama told IOL.

Salama is one of some 3000 Palestinians left stranded on the Egyptian side of the closed Rafah main crossing, on the southern border of the Gaza Strip.

Though Rafah closures are nothing new, this one has gone for 17 days starting on July 17.

Israeli officials say the crossing will not reopen until they find a tunnel they claim is being dug to help the Palestinians smuggle weapons.

Men and women of all ages are crammed into a parking lot about half the size of a soccer field with only two doors for ventilation and straw mats serving as beds.

Deplorable Conditions

Mariam Zare is helplessly waiting at the terminal with her five children. She hit out at the sepulchral silence of the international community and rights groups.

“We live in a small prison isolated from the world. Our lives are tasteless and we are deprived of our basic rights,” Zareb told IOL, sounding dispirited.

“Many people develop skin diseases from lack of bathing due to a dearth of water,” she added.

Nabil Shat, a physician, said his heart breaks for some of the stranded, who have to sleep in the open.

“We are living under deplorable conditions in the broad sense of the word,” furious Shat said. “I see women and children with smelly and rotten clothes, men selling their properties to provide for their families.”

He said they are running out of food and water and lack bed sheets.

No Exceptions

At previous closures, Israeli authorities used to make some exceptions for the elderly and patients. But this time no exceptions were made at all.

They, for instance, denied access to a Palestinian mother accompanying the body of her nine-year-old daughter, who breathed her last at Cairo ’s Naser Hospital for Cancer Tumors.

Egyptian authorities allowed the mother to burry Hend Manna Abu Shiha in the northern nearby city of Al-Arish .

Jawdat Mohammad Al-Naggar decided to return home from the United Arab Emirates following 30 years of drudgery.

“I’m dying to see my family and fellowmen. My children want to see their motherland,” he said