Israeli blockade dims hopes for Gazans to travel abroad

Akram Jouda, a 42-year-old Palestinian from the Gaza Strip, feels disappointed for being unable to make his first tourist trip outside the seaside enclave due to the frequent closures of Gaza's border crossings with neighboring countries -- Israel and Egypt.

"It is a misery," Jouda, a government employee, said, pointing out that before the blockade was imposed he was busy with his new marital life and could not travel at that time.

"Now, I have the money to travel, but the closure of the crossings prevents me from having my first tourist trip," he said, adding that he started losing hope to go abroad as he grows older.

"I just want to visit another country, and enjoy the archaeology or beaches," Jouda said. "The closure of the crossings kills my dream."

The coastal territory, home to some 1.9 million people, has been blockaded by Israel since Islamic Hamas movement seized control of the tiny enclave by force in 2007 after routing troops loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who now rules the West Bank.

Egypt, which also shares border with Gaza, has been imposing restrictions on opening the Rafah crossing with the enclave after the removal of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.

The Israeli blockade and the Egyptian restrictions have had severe consequences on the livelihoods of the Palestinians. Freedom of movement for Palestinians is severely limited, with exceptions only for some business travelling and emergency medical cases.

Amr al-Reqeb, a 20-year-old Palestinian from Gaza, says living in Gaza is like living in a cage, lamenting that his friends and he cannot travel just as young people in other countries do.

"I always dreamed to study at a European university," he said. "Now I just wish I could travel to a European country for a few days."

And apparently his hope of traveling abroad for only a few days cannot materialize.

Gaza students who wish to study abroad should apply with the Hamas government to get a travel permit. But even if they have the permits, they are still faced with difficulties because of the blockade.

The Gaza Strip, once a prominent tourist hub in the 1990s, used to have an international airport, but it was destroyed by Israel in 2002 after the eruption of violence between Israel and the Palestinians, known as the second Intifada, in 2000.

All these have delivered heavy blows to the ailing tourism industry in Gaza.

"I almost have no customers," Wassim Mushtaha, owner of a tourism agency in Gaza, told Xinhua. "Every resident in Gaza wants to travel, but traveling is extremely limited and my business has been going down rapidly for almost a decade."

"The closure has ruined the business," he said.

Mushtaha, whose company was founded in 1965, said his agency was once one of the leading firms in the industry in Gaza and had been always busy with tourists.

To make up for the losses, Mushtaha has shifted his firm's focus to annual religious trips to Saudi Arabia for pilgrims.

"I also coordinate registrations for students who can travel for education abroad," he added.

Meanwhile, Salah Abu Hasira, chief of Gaza Corporation of Hotels and Restaurants, told Xinhua that rooms of Gaza's 22 hotels are almost empty throughout the year.

"Some of the hotels receive a number of foreign humanitarian workers who come to visit the territory for a few days. But this does not happen regularly," he said.

Abu Hasira put the annual loss of Gaza's 109 tourist facilities at an estimated 6 million U.S. dollars.

With the dwindling of foreign visitors, the facilities were forced to mainly focus on local tourists, who have been rendered very poor due to the deteriorating economic conditions of the territory.

Source : XINHUA