Return to Jerusalem
203
"The Egyptian army will soon massacre those Jews," Moustafa threatened.1
Past the last roadblock and inspection post, we climbed a
dusty road that suddenly reared itself over the flatness. We
roared down the main street in a terrific cloud of dust, ripping
through a maze of donkeys, carts, pastry vendors, bearded
Bedouins, and armed Arabs. At the marketplace we stopped
with screaming brakes. Alighting, we went to a coffee house
perched above the teeming street and shaded from the blistering sun by dried branches. It was a restful nook. Here one
could get all the news, establish contacts, and transact his
business while drinking hot tea, and smoking the narghileh,
without moving once beyond range of a backgammon board.
"The drinks are on me," I said.
We ordered tall glasses of dark hot tea, heavy with sugar
and flavored with fresh mint. Faris and Moustafa looked
around to see whom they knew. Additional chairs and more
tables were brought over. Sammy and his beloved Ismail continued their mutual adoration, oblivious to everyone else.
I was absorbed by historic Gaza, now a city of dust and
donkeys. Without these faithful little animals traffic would
have been paralyzed. All day long they trudged at an unvarying pace, head always drooping—docile, four-legged fellaheen,
carrying everything from gasoline tins to pot-bellied, satinskirted Arabs three times their weight. Centuries ago thousands of Greeks living here had been forcibly converted to
Islam, so that a large proportion of its population was originally Christian. A few Armenian families remained from the
large numbers once here. Gaza was an all-Arab community
now, Moslem in spirit and appearance. Streets were devoid of
1
It never did. Before the Mandate Kfar Darom was attacked repeatedly
by volunteer bands. Later it was pulverized by Egyptian regulars, who at one
time broke into the settlement perimeter and were driven out only after a
bitter building-to-building battle. On the night of July 8, 1948, Kfar Darom
was booby-trapped and evacuated quietly. A handful of defenders slipped
through the Egyptian lines at night, taking along their wounded, and reached
Tel Aviv safely.