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OPT: Witness - Return to Gaza

By Wafa Amr

GAZA STRIP, July 27 (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.

Instead, there was silence and destruction. Everywhere, destruction and emptiness. Ruined buildings ready to topple.

A shortage of petrol has made cars scarce. People travel in donkey carts, or motorcycles brought in from Egypt in January when people stormed the border to break the blockade.

Beit Hanoun, the once busy industrial zone, was flattened -- including the Oslo restaurant opened shortly after Arafat signed the 1993 interim peace deals with Israel negotiated secretly in Oslo, Norway.

Several shops and a few factories on the road to Gaza centre were shut. The few boutiques and restaurants that were open hardly had any customers. Garbage bags were on the streets and pavements. The economic situation has been aggravated by international sanctions imposed after Hamas took over.

I went to a supermarket in the luxurious al-Rimal neighbourhood and asked the shop owner about how conditions have changed.

My question sparked a heated debate among the customers. One woman passionately defended Hamas while others complained of worsening conditions under the Islamist group.

"I never felt safe under Fatah's secular regime of thieves and corrupt people. Now under Hamas, who believe in God, I feel safe," said the woman who only gave her name as Um Ahmad.

She was interrupted by another woman.

"Those who are not Hamas are treated badly. I was detained and interrogated for criticising Hamas and then sacked from my job," she said.

A man who had been employed by the Palestinian Authority in the coastal enclave said that during his seven-day detention, he was interrogated about why he had drunk beer eight years ago.

Many women have always gone about covered in Gaza, where religious traditions have been stronger than in some other Palestinian areas. Some continue to walk around without scarves. But headcoverings seemed more common.

A woman who, like many others, refused to give her name, said she never wore the headscarf before in Gaza.

"Hamas doesn't impose the scarf on us but we are forced to wear it to avoid the stinging comments we hear from their men and women on the streets," she said.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is negotiating a deal with Israel to establish a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But Gaza is not only separated from the rest of the Palestinian areas geographically.

It now has a different political reality.

(Editing by Sara Ledwith and Samia Nakhoul)