Busted: The Myth that Gaza is an ‘Open Air Prison’

Build that wall! Build that wall! The wall between Gaza and Egypt, that is. Does this mean that Egypt is an apartheid state?

Suffice it to say I’m not in the habit of using the Google search engine. But I guess if you want to point out the smell of hypocrisy, you have to take a whiff of the outhouse.

So, I did search Google for “Gaza open air prison.” The amount of standard website and video hits was in the hundreds. It very well may have been in the thousands, but I grew pretty bored with hitting the more results button.

First things first (and the most obvious), allow me to point out that the Israeli-Gaza border is 37 miles in length. The Egyptian-Gaza border is 7.5 miles in length.

Now I may not have a Masters in Lesbian Dance Theory, but I am smart enough to know that Israel isn’t the only nation that borders Gaza.

Not only are the Egyptians coming right out and saying “Hell no,” but the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, as well. Let’s be honest… the Saudis, Emiratis, Kuwaitis, Qataris, Syrians, Libyans, Kuwaitis, etc., aren’t exactly tearing down their own gates to let the Gazans into their own countries.

Gosh. Think they know something that we don’t?

Second point: The IDF (Israel Defense Force) left Gaza back in 2005. What prison doesn’t have prison guards?

Third point: Israel has been accused of “genocide” of the Arab population.

But according to WorldPopulationReview.com, the Arab population of Gaza in 1950 (two-years after Israel declared independence) was 63,444. To present day, the Washington Post states that the entire territory has a population of 2.1 million.

That’s an increase of 32 times greater. If the Israelis are complicit of genocide, they’re the worst ever at it.

Lastly, Israel was slowly but surely raising the number of work permits for Gazans to cross the border daily to work in Israel (emphasis mine);

Noted by Haaretz.com on 21 Oct, 2021, “Israel announced on Wednesday that it was increasing to 10,000 the number of work permits it was granting to merchants and workers from the Gaza Strip.”

In quite the interesting article from 26 Mar, 2022, as reported by the Times of Israel, as of 12 March, 2022, Gazans crossing the border every day to work in Israel was 12,000 per day.

Reported by Barrons.com on 27 March, 2022, the Israeli government officially raised the number of work permits for Gazans was raised from 12,000 to 20,000 per day.

TheMediaLine.og cites that 21 June, 2022, that the Jerusalem government was exploring the possibility of raising the number of work permits to 30,000 per day.

On Aug 26, 2022, the Associated Press reports of Ibrahim Slaieh notes the pay differences of living in Gaza, but working in Israel, “One month of work there [Israel] equals three years of work here [Gaza].”

The United Nations cited on 27 Feb, 2023 that “In January 2023, the Israeli authorities allowed 53,118 exits of people from Gaza (in most cases, travellers exited multiple times).

With all that said, you know damn good and well that when Hamas planned the Oct.7 Attacks, it would be the people of Gaza who would suffer.