Via Maris (Latin for "Way of the Sea") refers to the "Way of the Philistines," which is one of the oldest and most strategic overland routes in history, and it is still a vital roadway is the besieged Gaza Strip, the National reports.

During antiquity, Via Maris served as a trade route linking Egypt with greater Syria and beyond.  Now known as Salah al Din Road, this is the Strip main north-south highway, running the full 45km length of Gaza.  Trade routes are no strangers to conflict, but Israel's occupation and later siege of the Gaza Strip has turned the road into a link to nowhere.

Says 75-year old Jaffa refugee Rabai al-Faqawi, "It was the most important road in the region, and it is still important. It would reach all the way to Turkey... I have seen the Egyptians, the Israelis, and now the Palestinians rule this road... Everything has changed."


Excerpt:

“When I was younger, all of this was orange groves, open farms,” said Abu Yusuf, 53, a blacksmith from the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis, where the road curves east to meet the city’s bustling vegetable and carpentry markets.

“Now, it is people, buildings, businesses, cars,” he said, sweeping his arm out towards the sides of the road. “Everything comes down this road.”

The highway’s vibrant traffic of travellers and commerce cannot go far, however.

Just 15km south of Abu Yusuf’s workshop, Salah al Din is choked-off by the enclave’s sealed border with Egypt at Rafah.

Salah al Din once ran all the way to the Egyptian seaside town of Al-Arish, 50km from Rafah, where it was known as the “Way of Horus” in Ptolemaic Egypt, in reference to the ancient Egyptian god of the sky, and whose pilgrims and merchants were raided regularly by the Bedouin of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on their way to Gaza.

On this day, according to authorities, the border is open to Palestinian passengers both leaving and returning to Gaza. But the territory’s more recent political landscape – where the Hamas government goes unrecognised by western powers – strangles the historically fluid border and leaves thousands stranded on both sides of the dusty crossing.

“I came to Gaza through Egypt, so I should leave through Egypt, but I am stuck,” Solia Idris, 34, a Gaza native with a Swiss passport, said at the border. “This is our life, but we are used to it; we are used to being closed off on all sides.”


Click here to read the article.

Photo:  Michael Ramallah - Flickr

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