The Westbourne Press

Shortly before I left the West Bank, a friend of a friend, originally from Gaza, gave me some advice. ‘Worry about your own safety, but not too much – there’s no point,’ he said. ‘Just keep your eyes open, don’t do anything really stupid – and laugh as much as you can.’

the night’s twice as dark –
its double darkness
is up to no good

Despite its blighted history of being invaded and occupied over and again, there have been golden times too, when Gaza flourished and everything seemed possible. Perched at the edge of the eastern Sinai, the ancient crossroads between North Africa, the Middle East and Mediterranean Europe, Gaza was a lodestar of the medieval spice trade, once the most lucrative business on earth. For at least ten centuries Arabian merchants crossed the Rub’ al-Khali, the fabled ‘Empty Quarter’, with fragrant cargoes of frankincense, myrrh and other spices, bound for the port of Gaza.