ael Publishes Gaza Travel Guidebook For Pro-Hamas Freedom Flotilla

We’ve put together this Gaza Tourism Guide, complete with picture galleries, which we believe to be the most comprehensive ever assembled on the web.

We know that after looking over everything, you’ll be as excited to stay in Gaza as we are to have you there. Feel free to pass this on at your ISM tabling sessions at Evergreen or whatever you people do on college campuses in between advocating genocide. And in the future, if you really want to repeatedly create Gaza media spectacles so you can damage Israel’s reputation, do what everyone else does. Join the UN.

WHERE TO SLEEP

Gaza City’s luxury hotels are located on the Gaza coastline in the posh district of Ramal, which gets its name from the Arabic word for “sands.” Ramal serves as a central gathering place for international and domestic dignitaries. Foreign officials are often found in the area, speaking about Gaza’s unbearable plight at the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights during the day, before retiring to the United Nations beach club at night. Top Hamas officials also congregate in the area, and can be easily identified during wartime as the ones hiding in the half-bunker/half-silo basement of the district’s Shifa Hospital. As can be expected the accommodations and eateries in Ramal are superb.

At the far end of the luxury spectrum, the Grand Palace Hotel has a direct beach view and puts guests literally across the street from the Mediterranean Sea. The building’s decadent Crystal Hall – included in the gallery below – makes it a much-desired banquet location for first weddings, second weddings, and martyrdom celebrations. Those seeking to secure the room are advised to book well in advance.

The Grand Palace’s sprawling facilities also make it a prime location for political and corporate events. When Fatah leader Nabil Shaath returned to the Gaza Strip in 2010, entering the territory for the first time since Hamas had violently seized control in a 2007 campaign that involved shooting out the kneecaps of Fatah-linked civilians, throwing them off roofs, and executing them in the streets – this is where Shaath met with his Hamas counterparts.

If you’re looking for a younger vibe you might want to check out the Marna House. The warm family-run establishment is like a home away from home. Though it’s Gaza’s oldest hotel, the blending of modern luxury with the ethos of anti-Zionist resistance has made it a favorite with college-aged ISM volunteers. Stable Internet means guests can – and do – blog about the savagery of targeted Israeli self-defense operations, tweet about the wonderful bravery of Hamas’s human shields, and even upload galleries of the beach side terrace to Flickr. Since the clientele skews young, it’s no surprise that past guests have set up a Marna House hotel & restaurant Facebook page so they can “share memories” of their bitter twilight struggle against Occupation
The Al Deira hotel, built along Gaza’s coast in sun dried mud bricks, is an option somewhere in between the Al Deira and the Marna House. Though the hotel boasts 22 spacious rooms and a world-class staff – enough so that some regular Western European diplomats and anti-Israel human rights investigators actually prefer it to the Grand Palace – the experience exudes down-to-earth Mediterranean hospitality. Bookworms will find a shop in the lobby specializing in Middle Eastern works of fiction, historical biographies, and conspiracy theories demonizing Jews. Wireless Internet is available for $2/hr or $10/day, and a fully equipped business center is available for $6/hr.

WHERE TO SHOP

Gaza’s markets are simply overflowing with goods supplied by hundreds of smuggling tunnels, from food and clothing to widescreen TVs and even live cows. The depth and breadth of the selection is so astounding that smaller tunnel operators are actually getting run out of business because they can’t compete with the scale of the larger operations.

Tourists hoping for bargains may nonetheless find themselves disappointed, however. Gaza’s relatively healthy per capita income – higher than India’s as a result of being the world’s largest per-capita aid recipient – keeps demand robust and prices stable.

Still, wily locals will know where great deals can be found. Don’t be afraid to ask for tips, either from your hotel clerk or from the attentive Hamas-provided tour guides who will be accompanying you everywhere. If you’re lucky they might be able to track down one of the souvenir Goldstone headscarves, honoring brutal apartheid judge Richard Goldstone. They’ve unfortunately been selling out all over Gaza, so nothing’s certain. Much more common are open air swap meets filled with kids selling automatic weapons.