WITNESS: Return to Gaza

Wafa Amr, a Jordanian, has been working for Reuters in Jerusalem since 1994 with a focus on the Palestinian Territories. She lived in Gaza intermittently between 1994 and 2000 and the last time she was there was in mid-2005. The following story recounts her first visit since before Hamas took over the enclave.

By Wafa Amr

GAZA STRIP (Reuters) - The air smelt of falafel cooking oil -- used by drivers to power their cars -- and a hint of sewage.

I was in Gaza for the first time since before the Israelis pulled out in 2005. The place where I lived intermittently for six years was -- utterly -- gone.

Beaches that once swarmed with people, gypsies dancing in Egyptian costumes barely covering their bodies to the cheers of young men and women, alcohol in some restaurants, the silver teeming of fish in the crowded market -- gone.

Demand for fish has slumped because as sewage is pumped into the sea, people are afraid to eat it.

At Erez border crossing, I stood for 15 minutes shut in a compartment like an airlock facing a concrete wall with another thick steel door carved in it, iron bars on the sides, and security cameras watching from above.

People said they had been trapped there for more than hour, watched by some soldier but unable to communicate with anyone.

"You have to stand in front of the door so they can see you and open the gate," shouted a worker through the iron bars, as he repaired damage done by a suicide bomber in May.

It was never paradise. The way in was always much easier than the way out, and the air used to ring out with the sound of bullets shot by gunmen for rival Palestinian factions.

But the atmosphere was alive, and people were hoping for freedom as the Israelis were due to leave the Gaza Strip.

Now, without a multiple entry visa to Israel, you could get stuck in Gaza, patrolled by bearded men with guns and veiled women, reading placards with Islamic sayings or verses from the Koran that are placed on roundabouts and some street walls.

When I finally got through the border, the bearded men ignored me and asked the taxi driver who I was and where I was going. Told we were following a car with my bureau chief and Gaza correspondent, they waved us in.

GREEN FLAGS AND GUNS

There was no question who was running Gaza. Hamas took over in mid-2007 after a power struggle with the rival Fatah faction following Yasser Arafat's death, and the Islamist group's green flags flew everywhere.

There were no more gunshots in the background: I only saw Hamas' bearded security forces and policemen with guns.