Occupied Occupied Jerusalem: It was a journey of just 50 miles, but for the nearly 100 children who visited Occupied Jerusalem on Sunday, it seemed like they had traveled to a distant world.
For the vast majority, it was their first trip outside of Gaza, the Israeli-blockaded enclave they call home. Selfie sticks abounded as they visited Al Haram Al Sharif, the third-holiest site in Islam, to pray.
Many said it was also the first time they had seen an Israeli.
Razan Farrah, 12, enthusiastically taped the winding streets of the Old City, holding her cellphone up to the face of a bemused-looking Western tourist and then a passing ultra-Orthodox Jew.
Her eyes widened. “I haven’t seen them before,” she explained, never lowering her camera phone. She zoomed in on the trinkets on sale in front of the tourist-trap stores. “I want to keep the memories.”
Just a small number of Gaza’s residents are granted permission to leave the densely populated 140-square-mile strip of land that stretches along the Mediterranean, with both Israel and Egypt imposing restrictions on travel and trade. Israel says it issued 80,000 permits in 2016, for a population of 2 million. They go to the urgently sick and others with exceptional needs for travel.
But this year the number of permits granted has drastically dropped, according to Gisha, an Israeli organisation that tracks Palestinian freedom of movement issues, with about half as many issued in July than the same month last year. Meanwhile, in recent months the Palestinian Authority has attempted to squeeze Hamas, the Islamist militant movement that rules the strip, by cutting the electricity supply, compounding misery for residents there.
“We thank god we are still living,” chirped Samah Lubad, an 11-year-old dressed in a white shirt with a Goofy cartoon print. “You learn to adapt to your surroundings.”
The trip took six months to organise, according to Scott Anderson, the West Bank field director for the UN Relief and Works Agency. Just seven of the 91 children had been outside Gaza before, he said.
The children will travel on to the Occupied West Bank, where they will stay until Friday, visiting Palestinian cities including Ramallah and Nablus. Some 38 children from the West Bank visited Gaza as part of the exchange.
With Gaza physically cut off from the West Bank, it will also be the first time most of the children have seen the rest of the Palestinian territories—and for some, relatives who live there.
“I hadn’t expected there to be so many entrances,” Lubad said of the Dome of the Rock, the site where Muslims believe Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) ascended into heaven. “We have a picture of it at home, but in reality it’s so huge.”
