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Authors: Louisa B. Waugh
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stronghold a great advantage, and the city was also protected by a high wall that Alexander’s troops found impossible to penetrate.
The siege lasted more than two months, during the height of summer. Alexander was wounded twice as his troops tried over and again to breach the Gaza City walls. Reeking, rancid and half-crazed with thirst as the local wadis (riverbeds) ran dry, his troops became murderous. Finally, on their fourth major assault, they broke through the walls into Gaza and unleashed bloody carnage, slashing and slaughtering some 10,000 of the men inside until the walls were crusted with their black gore, raping and enslaving women and children, and sacking the city of its treasures, including its troves of perfumes and spices.
But even in defeat, Batis refused to bow to Alexander. The conqueror’s henchmen forced through a rope between Batis’s ankle bones and his Achilles tendons, bound the rope to Alexander’s own chariot and dragged the eunuch alive around the city until his body was nothing but eviscerated meat. 20
With Gaza crushed, Alexander continued south towards the Nile Delta, where he ‘liberated’ the Egyptian Empire, founded the city of Alexandria and was pronounced the new ‘Master of the Universe’, at the grand old age of 24. His men would have stormed down the ancient ‘Way of the Sea’, right along this coastline where I am standing now, barefoot in the placid Mediterranean.
Tariq and his friends are slightly ahead of me, but someone else is waving at me from the beach. Not another joker, please. He comes loping towards me, a man with a shaved head, smiling like he recognises me. Ah – now I know who it is.
‘
Marhaba, ya
Louisa – how you like al-Arish?’
‘It’s beautiful!’ I exclaim as Muhammad the driver and I shake hands, laughing.
‘Fucking
helwa
(great)!’ He almost sings the words, his face alight with joy. This is the first time I’ve actually seen him outside his taxi.
‘Did you bring your family with you, Muhammad?’
‘No. We don’t know how long the border will be open and you know my wife is pregnant. I will go back to Gaza tonight – I just came to see this with my own eyes.’
He doesn’t say anything else. Just stands there with a blissed-out smile.
‘Look, Muhammad, I’m supposed to be at work today – so, er, don’t tell anyone you saw me, OK?’
‘Loueeza!’ His expression is pure wicked triumph. He has caught me out and is delighted to have done so. But I’m sure he won’t tell on me. A few minutes later I have to go, to catch up with Tariq and his relatives. When I reach them and glance back over my shoulder, Muhammad is still standing at the gentle lip of the sea.
Tariq, who did tell his boss he was crossing to Egypt, wants to stay here another day or so. Fair enough, I say, this is a nice place to linger. But I must be on my way. We easily find a crowded minibus heading back to Rafah and I set off alone, just after lunch. A few hours later I stroll back past the waxwork Egyptians with their riot shields. As I clamber over the crumpled fence, this time in sunlight, the man in front of me is guiding a herd of goats into Gaza. And the TV cameras have arrived.
Why did Hamas do it? Did they blow up the border to boost their popularity with Gazans? Or to thumb their noses at Israel, or at their neighbour and gate-keeper, Egypt, the first Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with Israel, back in 1978? Many Gazans despise the Egyptian authorities for allowing Israel to control the crossing at Rafah and effectively seal it – they did this in June 2006, after the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit (thereby cutting off the only route out of Gaza that bypasses Israel).
The Egyptians also cooperate with Israel over the network of Gazan smugglers’ tunnels snaking under the Rafah border. My colleague Shadi is from Rafah and has told me about the Egyptians pouring concrete down the tunnels and pumping gas into them, forcing the smugglers – men
The siege lasted more than two months, during the height of summer. Alexander was wounded twice as his troops tried over and again to breach the Gaza City walls. Reeking, rancid and half-crazed with thirst as the local wadis (riverbeds) ran dry, his troops became murderous. Finally, on their fourth major assault, they broke through the walls into Gaza and unleashed bloody carnage, slashing and slaughtering some 10,000 of the men inside until the walls were crusted with their black gore, raping and enslaving women and children, and sacking the city of its treasures, including its troves of perfumes and spices.
But even in defeat, Batis refused to bow to Alexander. The conqueror’s henchmen forced through a rope between Batis’s ankle bones and his Achilles tendons, bound the rope to Alexander’s own chariot and dragged the eunuch alive around the city until his body was nothing but eviscerated meat. 20
With Gaza crushed, Alexander continued south towards the Nile Delta, where he ‘liberated’ the Egyptian Empire, founded the city of Alexandria and was pronounced the new ‘Master of the Universe’, at the grand old age of 24. His men would have stormed down the ancient ‘Way of the Sea’, right along this coastline where I am standing now, barefoot in the placid Mediterranean.
Tariq and his friends are slightly ahead of me, but someone else is waving at me from the beach. Not another joker, please. He comes loping towards me, a man with a shaved head, smiling like he recognises me. Ah – now I know who it is.
‘
Marhaba, ya
Louisa – how you like al-Arish?’
‘It’s beautiful!’ I exclaim as Muhammad the driver and I shake hands, laughing.
‘Fucking
helwa
(great)!’ He almost sings the words, his face alight with joy. This is the first time I’ve actually seen him outside his taxi.
‘Did you bring your family with you, Muhammad?’
‘No. We don’t know how long the border will be open and you know my wife is pregnant. I will go back to Gaza tonight – I just came to see this with my own eyes.’
He doesn’t say anything else. Just stands there with a blissed-out smile.
‘Look, Muhammad, I’m supposed to be at work today – so, er, don’t tell anyone you saw me, OK?’
‘Loueeza!’ His expression is pure wicked triumph. He has caught me out and is delighted to have done so. But I’m sure he won’t tell on me. A few minutes later I have to go, to catch up with Tariq and his relatives. When I reach them and glance back over my shoulder, Muhammad is still standing at the gentle lip of the sea.
Tariq, who did tell his boss he was crossing to Egypt, wants to stay here another day or so. Fair enough, I say, this is a nice place to linger. But I must be on my way. We easily find a crowded minibus heading back to Rafah and I set off alone, just after lunch. A few hours later I stroll back past the waxwork Egyptians with their riot shields. As I clamber over the crumpled fence, this time in sunlight, the man in front of me is guiding a herd of goats into Gaza. And the TV cameras have arrived.
Why did Hamas do it? Did they blow up the border to boost their popularity with Gazans? Or to thumb their noses at Israel, or at their neighbour and gate-keeper, Egypt, the first Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with Israel, back in 1978? Many Gazans despise the Egyptian authorities for allowing Israel to control the crossing at Rafah and effectively seal it – they did this in June 2006, after the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit (thereby cutting off the only route out of Gaza that bypasses Israel).
The Egyptians also cooperate with Israel over the network of Gazan smugglers’ tunnels snaking under the Rafah border. My colleague Shadi is from Rafah and has told me about the Egyptians pouring concrete down the tunnels and pumping gas into them, forcing the smugglers – men
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