The New York Times · 13 June 1989

CP-1989-032

ID Cards a New Symbol of Gaza Battle

By CLYDE HABERMAN

Scan 642 × 1248 pixels

Transcribed from the clipping

EREZ CHECKPOINT, Israeli-Occupied Gaza Strip, June 12 — The latest battle for control between Israelis and the Palestinans in their midst is being waged inside a dusty army compound here. Its weapons are computers, cameras and laminating machines, and one side has them all.

Starting at 4 A.M. today, Palestinians living in this northern sliver of the Gaza Strip filed into the army post to receive new computer-coded identity cards that the Israeli authorities began distributing six days ago.

By 1:30 P.M., 400 of them were still there, filling rows of chairs, shielded from the sun by a tarpaulin, patiently waiting to complete the long process of picture-taking and computer-checking. If they did not pass muster — if they had a criminal record or owed taxes or were judged to be political troublemakers — they could not get the cards.

Without the cards, they will not be able to leave the Gaza Strip for Israel. And if they cannot do that, many of them will have no work at all. Resentment Flares That, several Palestinians said, is as good an incentive for patience as any. Still, resentment flared.

“We all reject this card,” asserted a middle-aged man, who said he has eight children and works in Israel as a laborer. “But we need bread for our children, and so we have do it.” Sitting there for hours humiliated him, he said, adding, “They treat us as if we are dogs.” An Israeli officer in charge of the program, Col.

Ami Levy, insisted that his soldiers did no such thing. The card is necessary, he told reporters allowed inside the compound, because “it proves that a man is honest.”

Cite this clipping

More from The New York Times

• The Maine Colony in PalestineThe New York Times · 12 November 1866
• Jewish Colonization in PalestineThe New York Times · 9 December 1883
• Jewish State in Palestine OpposedThe New York Times · 9 July 1897
• ZIONIST CONGRESS IN BASELThe New York Times · 31 August 1897
• ROME FEARS THE ZIONISTSThe New York Times · 12 September 1897
• PROGRESS OF ZIONISMThe New York Times · 16 December 1901
• 852 more from this paper in the full text →

More from the 1980s

• ArafatThe Times · 18 January 1989
• Israeli officials play down offer from Shamir to withdraw troopsThe Miami Herald · 3 February 1989
• Shamir offer not newWorcester Telegram · 3 February 1989
• Israelis Study Devices In Blasts in West BankThe New York Times · 16 February 1989
• Can't rule, absorb, bar or expel PalestiniansSt. Louis Jewish Light · 3 March 1989
• THE AMBIGUOUS YASIR ARAFATThe New York Times · 12 March 1989
• All 527 clippings from the 1980s →