Gaza -- Home of the Brave

By Steve Rodan

The Gaza Strip is a tiny enclave along the Mediterranean Sea. For thousands of years, the area has maintained a Jewish presence.

But when Great Britain was granted the League of Nations mandate for Palestine in 1920, London began to expel the Jews. The biggest opportunity was in 1929 when the Arabs rampaged through Jewish communities with the quiet approval of British authorities. The British then took the Jews out of Gaza -- and never allowed them back.

But Gaza, encompassing 365 square kilometers, remained an ideal place for refugees. The mild weather meant that people could live in unheated tents rather than stone or wooden houses. During World War II, Britain brought thousands of Europeans to Gaza to escape Hitler. The refugees came from Greece, Poland and Yugoslavia. There wasn't a Jew among them.

While Gaza was off-limits to Jews, it became the sanctuary for at least 14,000 European refugees during World War II. When Hitler invaded Poland in 1939, Britain and the United States began the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from German-occupied Europe under what would become the Middle East Relief and Refugee Administration. Many of the refugees came to Palestine as soldiers of exiled armies, now adopted by Britain. The British established a camp in Gaza called Nuseirat for Greeks, Poles and Yugoslavs.

The Gaza Strip was far from undeveloped. The British had already helped establish a hospital base and air force headquarters in the area. The Royal Air Force also developed an airfield [1]

Unlike the European refugees, Jews had never been strangers in the Gaza Strip. The area was part of biblical Israel and a Jewish community was maintained after the Second Temple was destroyed in 69 CE. Gaza City contained most of the Jewish presence, including a synagogue that lasted into the 20th Century.

Expulsions

The British followed the tradition of previous occupiers. The Jews were expelled from Gaza in the Sixth Century. But when the Romans left, the Jews returned. In 1481, Meshulam of Volterra, a Jewish banker from Florence, reported 60 Jewish families along with vineyards, fields, homes and a "small beautiful synagogue."

In the 19th Century, the Egyptian ruler, Ibraham Basha, again expelled the Jews and dismantled their synagogue. By the 1870s, the Jews were back. A Hebrew school was built in 1910, joined four years later by a bank. During World War I, the Ottoman Empire kicked out the Jews and others from Gaza. In 1929, now under British rule, the Jews in Gaza were attacked and their synagogue was destroyed by Arabs. For six days, the British did nothing to stop the Arab riots. Finally, the British expelled the Jews. [2]

The departure of the Jews opened possibilities for Britain to show a humanitarian side. During World War II, London treated the European refugees well. This while in Poland and surrounding countries, Britain and the United States imposed a blockade that prevented food from arriving in the Jewish ghettos.

In the Gaza Strip, however, nobody starved. The British Army provided rations daily and allowed additional food for religious and national customs. A variety of staples were also available in local stores, including olives, beans, fruit, tea and coffee.

In occupied Europe, the Jews were forced to become slaves. But the Greeks, Poles and Yugoslavs were not required to work in Nuseirat. The refugees could earn money in carpentry, painting as well as producing shoes and spun wool. [3]

The British found additional use for the new refugee camps. They trained the arrivals as nurses. Instruction included anatomy, physiology, obstetrics and pediatrics. Until formal accreditation, they could only treat patients in wartime.

Nuseirat was also equipped to educate children. One refugee painted works for the kindergarten and other classrooms. The facilities also received such donations as toys, games and dolls. The International Committee of the Red Cross was authorized to help care for the refugees.

All gentiles

Under British policy, the European refugees were virtually all gentiles. In May 1939, London published the White Paper, which banned significant immigration to Palestine and planned for an Arab state within a decade. In return, the Arabs ended a three-year rebellion against the British. Jewish immigration was seen as possibly derailing London's agenda.

Unlike the Jews, the British did not regard the gentile refugees as dangerous. At the same time as London issued the White Paper, the government restored a law that froze assets of Jews who had fled from German-occupied Europe. In 1940, tens of thousands of Jews who arrived from Germany a year earlier were rounded up as enemy aliens and sent to British internment camps.

Hundreds of thousands arrive

In contrast, the same British Navy that had stopped Jews from reaching Palestine was used to bring the European gentiles to safety in Gaza and throughout the region. From 1939 to 1941, London relocated up to 300,000 from Poland to Iran. They arrived via the Caspian Sea, where many joined the exiled Polish Army. In August 1942, 74,000 Polish soldiers as well as thousands of civilians were welcomed to Palestine.

Again, the invitation was to gentiles only. Under British direction, the Polish Army rejected Jewish volunteers, who were told they were diseased. Only a tiny number of Jews made it in the army of Polish Gen. Wladyslaw Anders and reached Palestine. One of them was Menachem Begin, a leader of the Revisionist movement in Poland who became head of the Jewish underground in 1942. Three years later, Begin helped launch a revolt that forced the British empire to withdraw from Palestine, including the Gaza Strip. By that time, the gentile refugees had already returned to Europe.

The last expulsion of the Jews from Gaza was ordered by the State of Israel. In 2005, some 10,000 Jews were forcibly removed from the Gaza Strip, ending a 35-year presence. As under the British, Israel told the Jews they would never return.

Notes

1. Gaza War Cemetery. Gaza War Cemetery | Cemetery Details | CWGC

2. The Jewish Communities in Gaza Throughout the Years. Mercaz Katif. The Jewish communities in Gaza throughout the years | Gush Katif Heritage Center (mkatif.org)

3. During WWII, European refugees fled to Syria. Here's what the camps were like. Evan Taparata and Kuang Keng Kuek Ser. The World. April 26, 2016. During WWII, European refugees fled to Syria. Here's what the camps were like. | The World from PRX

Below: Nuseirat refugee camp in 1945. United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration