V/o: This is not a prison camp - these people are not, technically, prisoners.They're Palestinians - but every morning that they come to work in this Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip they're searched for weapons, - for bombs, knives, guns.
The settlers' chief of Security collects their ID cards at the gate while Israeli soldiers do the body searches.
It's just after six o'clock in the morning.Gaza is a crowded, violent place, where a million Palestinians are hemmed-in with a few-thousand Jewish settlers. Gaza is not part of Israel but since the Israeli army occupied it in 1967 it's been in charge and it still rules.
(map)

V/o: Most of the Gaza Strip is officially under the control of the Palestinian Authority - in practice, Israel controls Gaza because it controls every border.No-one and nothing comes in and out of the Gaza Strip without Israel's say-so - not even the fish.
The sardine catch is down today, the fishermen say they need to go further offshore at this time of the year, but the Israelis won't let them.
A couple of nights ago Mazin Abu Ryaleh was arrested and fined when he went outside the limit.And he says the Israelis don't hesitate to use force.

Sync: "They shoot near us almost every night. The only thing we haven't had yet is a sniper's bullet in the head."
V/o: Every evening as the fishing fleet heads out they're shadowed by an Israeli patrol boat - Israel is rightly concerned that weapons could be smuggled in but its strategy punishes the innocent and the guilty.
But securing the borders around Gaza is only one way that Israel controls what happens here.
v/o: Inside this tiny strip of land are 7 thousand Jewish settlers living in often heavily fortified enclaves.
Ptc: "Much of the Israeli army's security effort inside the Gaza Strip is all about keeping Palestinians and Jewish settlers apart. That's the Palestinian area up there and behind me you can just make out the buildings of Jewish settlement, about 500 metres away. Now, to try to gaurantee safe access to and from the settlement, the Israeli army establishes security corridors which criss-cross the Gaza Strip, running north to south, and to make them secure the army frequently occupies land on either side of the road, land that palestinians have been living on." 
V/o: Which is exactly what happened to Omar Dahir on October 27th last year when the Israelis decided they needed a new road to this settlement.Omar and his family had been staying with relatives. They returned to find their house in ruins, bulldozed to the ground.
Sync: "I used to have 12 greenhouses, 10 for tomatoes, another for peppers and a seven roomed house. I had 2 chickens farms and I had more than 88 thousand dollars in the house."(0815 edit). 0831 "It took them 3 hours to destroy something which took me 30 years to build." 

V/o: You can see where bulldozers have made sandbanks out of what was part of Omar's market garden.The army doesn't offer evidence that Omar Dahir's house was used by palestinian gunmen - it simply wanted the land, so it took it.
Months later he, his wife and 11 children are still living in two Red Cross tents pitched on a relative's property.

Sync: "I'm nearly 50 years old. I'm finished. Look at my son. He's six years old, when he's 20 what's going to happen to him, I'll be dead." (breaks down)
V/o: These arbitary injustices are not rare, dozens of houses, orchards and olive groves have been razed in recent months.

One of the most extrordinary cases is that of Hussein Alayde.
I'd like to show you his house. He'd like to show you his house but that's difficult because he has the Israeli army living on his roof.
You can see the camouflage netting around the top of it.Every now and then a few army jeeps escort buses and cars along the road in front which leads to to Jewish settlement further inside Gaza.
Hussein says he was told by Israeli security chiefs that they were occupying his house to protect Jewish settlers.

Sync: "At first they said it would be temporary, until they solved the problems they were having on the road. But now they say it depends on the settlement. When the commanders come here they tell me they won't be able to leave my house while the settlement remains."
V/o: The family's every action is controlled by the soldiers.
Sync: "I can't leave the house without permission. My children can't go to school without permission. I can't visit my brothers nearby without permission. A soldier has to open and close the door for me." 

V/o: We'd asked for permission to visit the house- the army had refused. NOTE: Alternative script line to be slotted in from here if you drop this PTC.But with some local help we got a little closer -from another building not far away we could see an army bulldozer clearing more ground along the roadside.
PTC: It's not easy to get a good view of Hussein Alayde's house, the Israeli army just doesn't like anyone getting too close. In fact earlier today some aid agency workers were fired on when they approached the house. We've managed to get about 400 metres away and if you poke your head around that window up there you can get a slightly better view.'

V/o: We couldn't see anyone on the roof - perhaps they could see us. 

V/o: So we tried the direct approach - straight up to an army checkpoint which guards the road leading to his house.Don't try this if you're Palestinian.

V/o: The next day we tried an alternative route - straight up to an army checkpoint which guards the road leading to his house.Don't try this if you're Palestinian.
But we scarcely got within fifty metres before being given our marching orders.

Sync "We need to got Hussein Alayde's house"
Sync 'You're not allowed to be here."

V/o: And since they have guns, common sense says this is as far as we go.Through the heat haze you can see the extent of army operations.
The army is not using the house just for observation - they're firing from here.

Sync: "The first 3 months there was firing almost 24 hours a day from the roof. It was sending us mad. At one point I pushed the children outside and said to the soldiers, 'here are my children, if you can make them sleep, go ahead, if you can keep them quiet, do it, if you want to kill them, kill them.'"
V/o: But perhaps most worrying of all, the Army insists there always be members of the family in the house.

V/o: So I asked the Israeli army spokesman why they insisted on members of the family being there at all times.
Sync: "this house has now been used by the Israeli army for four months. The Palestinian side is looking at this house now as a target."(edit: use noddy) 0837 "so for security reasons, for our security and for their own security, even if it seems a little bit illogical, irrational we have asked them not to get out from the house altogether, or according to some restrictions."(reverse question) Q:"Is the army using these people as human shields to protect the soldiers who are occupying the house?"A:"No, no, I categorically deny this statement. Not at all."Q:"Well how would you describe their role if it's not to prevent Palestinians firing at Israeli troops."A:"I'll tell you something, it's their house, they are living there. If they leave the house totally, for example, maybe they will say that we are going to occupy the house, or take the house, like to steal the house. We don't want to steal the house."

V/o: But why, I asked, didn't the Army simply build its own tower or bunker somewhere nearby?
Sync: "To build a tower or build a new military facility could be, of course, against the agreement and could be seen and could be actually used by the Palestinian side as a new military facility built by the Israelis against the Palestinians, so of course we don't want to build new target or build new reasons to be targeted by the other side."

V/o: So what do the Jewish settlers inside Gaza know about these house occupations?
Sync "The only time they've occupied homes is when those direct people have been very aggressive and attacked us for no good reason or attacked Israel for no good reason."

V/o: But that's not why the army's occupied Hussein Alayde's house.
Sync: "It's not a problem with Mr Alayde, we have no problem with this family. Again, I want to say clearly and formally that we regret and I regret that innocent people are involved in this situation."

V/o: Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip in 1967 is not recognised internationally - Palestinians claim that building settlements on occupied land contravenes the Geneva Convention.
Netzer Hazani was the first permanent Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip and Anita Tucker is one of the original settlers.

Sync: "Arab culture is based on strength, that there's tremendous respect for strength. Whoever's the stronger party, the Arab culture respects them." 
V/o: Respect seems a moot point when you're searched every morning before you go to work.

V/o: Having been frisked by soldiers these Palestinians then head up to the settlers greenhouses, to help Anita Tucker grow the celery and lettuces that are her livelihood.(upsot : t19tc1842 of conversation in greenhouse)
V/o: It must be odd to work with people all day and wonder if they're firing mortars at you at night.

Sync "I'm showing you the exact location of where the mortar fell and exploded. Between the 40 children who were playing here, five were injured and were taken to hospital."
(upsot solider listening to radio)V/o: Since the violence began seven months ago the army has moved in between the settlers houses and the Palestinian area - shots are exchanged pretty much on a nightly basis.

V/o: And out on the roads there's a big army presence - palestinians drive on one side, settlers on the other. The settlers are targets for Palestinian gunmen.
Sync : "It must have been a sniper because it was quite exact. Anyway, he missed, it went through the back of my husband's back window, about 10 mm from the back of his head and out the other window. We heard the shot quite clearly."

V/o: The people who live in these settlements are always on guard. People routinely carry weapons, there are soldiers on the gates. NOTE: The following section with politician's visit can be dropped if duration is a problem
V/o:And when a politician visits, the security reflects the fact that they're entering hostile territory - this government minister has come down to inspect the site of the mortar attack a couple of days ago, and offer comfort to some of those injured.

V/O: And for his trouble, he gets a burst from the father of one those injured. 
Sync: "What did the IDF (Army) do, nothing, The police, the IDF, the border police, all of them were just standing around metres away and did nothing."

V/o: The settlers see themselves as the front line troops in Israel's struggle for survival. They have political clout way beyond their number. 

Sync:"I'm very happy to live peacefully with my Arab neighbours and I think Israeli security is not doing what they're doing to protect me, they're doing what they're doing to protect the country of Israel, the entire state of Israel which is a very tiny country in this area."
V/o: A million Palestinians, many living in the most squalid conditions see 7 thousand settlers occupying twenty percent of Gaza as the very core of their struggle.

V/o: Hussein Alayde's family moved here as refugees when the state of Israel was founded in 1948.
Now he's a prisoner in his own home while Israeli tanks cruise up and down outside.

Sync: "We will never have a solution as long as the settlers stay in this area. You can see that from what the Israelis are doing. Everyday they are destroying trees and everything else because of the settlers. We will never have any solution as long as they are here."
(sound up radio) "in a separate incident palestinian officials say israeli soldiers have shot and killed a Palestinian youth and wounded 14 others in the Gaza Strip."

V/o: The whole settlement issue has moved centre stage again in the conflict.Palestinians say an end to settlement expansion is a condition of a ceasefire.The new Israeli government is giving them more money to help them grow.

V/o: Less than a year ago a different Israeli administration was prepared to abandon them as part of a final peace agreement. Anita Tucker's heard it all it all before.

Sync: "I've been asked this question every year for 25 years since I first came here and the only ones who talk to me about it are the reporters who come back every year and ask the same question and I'm still here. So I hope that next year you're welcome to come back and ask me the same question."
V/o: So that's how it's to be for now, the settlers with their armed escorts, behind a ring of steel.

V/o: On the other side an occupation that with each day guarantees new enemies for Israel.
Sync: "They're destroying any chance of peace in the future. What can you expect from children who have to live with this daily suffering." 

V/o: For Palestinians, Gaza feels like one big open air prison.In truth everyone who lives here is a captive of this conflict.