Draconian Israeli regulations make it difficult to access the binoculars and long camera lenses they need, but bird-watchers are flourishing
The skies of Gaza fill with shifting shapes on an early spring morning. At first they are barely visible, only specks soaring above central Gazaβs wetlands. Mandy Sirdah quickly raises her binoculars. βStorks!β she shouts excitedly. Close by, Lara Sirdah, her identical twin sister wearing matching clothes, grabs her long-focus camera and points it to the sky. βSo many! So beautiful!β she cries out with joy as she snaps photos of hundreds of white storks flying in circles above her. Every spring, millions of birds set out from their wintering grounds in Africa and make their way north to Europe and Asia. At the intersection of three continents, the Middle East is an important stopover and one of the worldβs busiest corridors for bird migration. Many of these birds fly over Gaza, an overcrowded coastal enclave often described as an βopen-air prison.β The birds soar above more than two million people, most of them refugees whose families were forced to leave their villages in 1948 with the establishment of the State of Israel and have been unable to return. Concentrated in refugee camps, Palestinians in Gazahave also been confined by Israeli policies of military closure over many decades and a brutal air, sea and land blockade imposed since 2007. βOur movement is very restricted,β says Lara, who feels cut off from the rest of the world. βWe wish we were birds so we could move freely.β Over the past years, birdwatching trips to the Stripβs wetlands, groves and fields have offered the twins a rare opportunity to escape the feeling of confinement. With their heads raised to the sky, they search for birds and dream of flight
