Gaza Strip residents’ dependence on Israel revealed: water and electricity

Honored test pilot of the USSR Felix Vorobyov worked in Palestine for more than 4 years, until 2001, as the personal pilot of local leader Yasser Arafat. Felix Mikhailovich once shared some memories of his Middle Eastern epic with a MK correspondent.

— Arafat regularly needed to get to other territories of the Palestinian Authority, separated from Gaza by Israeli lands. But at the same time, the PLO leader avoided using cars for his trips through this Jewish state: apparently, he feared an attack. Therefore, he needed his own air transport. So the Palestinians purchased, “in a roundabout way”, through third parties, two Mi-8 helicopters: one for Arafat himself, the other for his security escort. I participated in transporting them to the Middle East, and then was invited to become the crew commander of Arafat’s Mi.

— Was Air Force One specially equipped in some way?

— Both vehicles were originally our ordinary Mi-8MT army “trucks”. In the “dashing” 1990s, some clever entrepreneur managed to buy them cheaply from one of our disbanding military units, and then concluded a lucrative contract with the Palestinians. Of course, the helicopter for Arafat was thoroughly re-equipped. This is what Slovak craftsmen did in Bratislava: they made a comfortable cabin for 8 people, with a table, leather chairs, decorative wall paneling… And under the belly of the helicopter they even managed to place an air conditioner from a regular bus.

Since the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization kept his headquarters in Gaza, his “personal board” was also based there.

— But is there an airport in the Gaza Strip? Everything is built up there, the highest population density…

— Of course, you can’t call this a full-fledged airport. The Palestinians set up a “government airfield” right in the city, among the blocks of houses. It was a small area with a short runway, suitable only for helicopter take-off and landing. Literally 10 meters from it there was a building, in one wing of which there were service offices, Arafat’s “VIP hall”, a dining salon, and in the other there were living quarters for the service technical and flight personnel. That’s where I and my colleagues, several other Soviet pilots, had a chance to live: each of us was given a separate room.

Taking off from this “airfield” in the middle of Gaza, in order to get to other parts of the Palestinian Authority, we most often went 10 kilometers into the sea, then turned along the coast to the north, and only when we were abeam of the Israeli Ben-Gurion International Airport set a course for the West Bank Jordan, to Hebron… It turned out to be a big detour, but the local authorities forbade us to fly directly through Israeli territory: along the way there were many of their restricted areas.

At the same time, all airspace over the Palestinian areas was under the jurisdiction of Israeli air traffic control services. So the Palestinians each time had to coordinate Arafat’s air travel routes with Israel in advance, usually 24 hours in advance. So the leader of the PLO was actually always “under the hood” of the Israelis.

“Arafat has been dead for quite some time. What about his airfield in Gaza?

— As far as I know, soon after the end of my work with the Palestinians, this airfield ceased to exist. In December 2001, during another outbreak of conflict between the Jewish side and the “Gazov” Palestinians, Israel launched a powerful missile attack on this site, and as a result it became unsuitable for take-offs and landings of aircraft.

At the same time, the Israelis disabled the Dahania International Airport, created in the south of the enclave in 1998. At first it was simply closed, stopping all flights and canceling passenger flights. And then Israeli aviation bombed the airport, damaging and destroying part of the airport’s structures.

The Palestinian Authority in Gaza is perhaps the most densely populated area in the world. The tiny territory, stretching 40 kilometers in length and reaching a maximum of 12 kilometers in width, is home to about 2 million people.

It turns out that the “Gaz” Palestinians are literally crowded on each other’s heads?

My interlocutor Valentin, who visited those places several years ago “in connection with official and production needs,” refuted this idea.

— The entire territory occupied by the Gaza Strip is a natural sandy desert. But there are very few lifeless, uninhabited areas. Almost everywhere there are inhabitants: thousands and thousands of houses, huts, randomly piled up. But such “squatter construction” is privately owned. In Gaza and several other cities that exist in the enclave (the boundaries of these settlements are very arbitrary, it is impossible to determine them on the ground), there are quite decent areas with multi-storey buildings, equipped embankments, quite modern hotels, shops, restaurants… There are also areas there cottage development: you can sometimes see the mansions of the “new Palestinians” that are chic even by the standards of our Moscow Rublyovka. However, such splendor is only a hundredth part of the sector, no more. The “decoration” of the main part of the territory are heaps of garbage, “wandering” under gusts of wind, and construction debris – the ruins of houses and shacks that collapsed due to dilapidation or were smashed by explosions of rockets and shells that flew in from Israel during the next conflict between the Arab and Jewish sides.

Transport in Gaza – with a local flavor. Due to problems with gasoline (it is imported into the enclave from neighboring Israel or delivered by sea), having your own car for household needs is a luxury that not everyone can afford. And in return, the majority use “four-legged transport” – donkeys. They are harnessed to carts and loaded with luggage. The sight of “Eeyore’s relatives” grazing right between houses, in the middle of the sand, or even on a city street, is an ordinary picture.

Speaking of supplies, Gaza is a territorial entity completely dependent on exports. For example, almost all the electricity here comes from Israel. Therefore, the decision just made by this country to “turn off the switch” for the “Gazovites” will certainly lead to huge problems. Fuel is also imported. They are trying to obtain fresh water in the enclave on their own. However, due to the uncontrolled avalanche-like drilling of wells, the structure of the aquifers was disrupted, and the quality of the water pumped out from there noticeably deteriorated. In fact, it is only suitable for technical needs. And the drinking water is also supplied mainly by the Israelis. It is sold in bottled form, but this is for wealthy gentlemen. And the poor use the services of water trucks. From such tanks, which regularly ply along the roads, water is pumped into special containers available in every house.