Lady Warsi: MPs must show way in Palestine vote

Two months after resigning over the government’s “morally indefensible” stance on Gaza, Lady Warsi has called on MPs to lead by example and recognise the state of Palestine in a potentially historic vote on Monday.

In a withering critique of British foreign policy towards the Middle East, Warsi said the government had abdicated responsibility for driving the peace process and its diplomatic channels with Israel counted “for nothing”.

“There is a lack of political will and our moral compass is missing,” the former Foreign Office minister told the Observer. “There are no negotiations, there is no show in town. Somehow we have to breathe new life into these negotiations, and one of the ways we can do that is by recognising the state of Palestine.”

Monday’s motion is purely symbolic. Labour MPs have been told by the party whips to vote in favour of Palestinian statehood, although some, such as Louise Ellman, who is a member of the Labour Friends of Israel, argue that recognition should only follow direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Most Liberal Democrats are likely to support the motion, along with significant numbers of Tories.

In her first interview following a self-imposed period of silence, Warsi said disquiet over the government’s approach to the Israel and Palestine issue was widespread and that far more needed to be done to pressure Israel towards a two-state solution.

Warsi resigned from the government in August over David Cameron’s refusal to take a tougher line on Israel. She said: “It’s not just former ministers, there are ministers in government of this view. The Foreign Office itself to the highest level feels our policy on this is wrong. Numerous officials from the Foreign Office have been in touch after my resignation, saying we absolutely agree with your position and the government is absolutely wrong.

“You’ve a small group of politicians who are keeping a close grip on this and who are not allowing public opinion, ministerial views, parliamentary views and the views of the people who work in this system.”

Other senior Conservative figures who are supporting calls for Palestine to be recognised as a state include the former minister for international development, Alan Duncan, the former Foreign Office minister Hugh Robertson, and Ken Clarke, the former lord chancellor and justice secretary.

The House of Commons debate comes after the leader of Sweden’s new centre-left government, Stefan Löfven, announced that his country would officially recognise Palestine, stating that “a two-state solution requires mutual recognition and a will to peaceful coexistence. Sweden will therefore recognise the state of Palestine.”

Warsi said the deteriorating situation after the Gaza crisis in the summer and the pace of settlement building by Israel meant the window of opportunity to recognise Palestine as a state might be no longer than a year.

“The settlement building continues apace, yet there are no consequences following settlement building. If the settlements are not stopped – and they will only be stopped if there are consequences – then the viability of a two-state solution is over,” she said.

Later this month, Warsi and Duncan hope to visit Gaza on a fact-finding mission. Duncan will speak on the Middle East at the Royal United Services Institute on Tuesday.

Sayeeda Warsi: why I had to quit

The tipping point for Sayeeda Warsi came in the aftermath of one of the most notorious incidents of this year’s Gazan war: the killing of four Palestinian children by Israeli shells as they played football on the beach. Warsi hoped that David Cameron would condemn the attack as beyond the pale. Instead, she heard only the dry language of diplomacy.

Two months on, Warsi walks over to the lounge window of her home outside Wakefield and points at a set of goalposts in the back garden.“My kids go out there playing in their shorts, looking pretty much like those kids on the beach. It was too close to home; it made it very real.

“The lack of movement even in our [government’s] language ...” Warsi’s voice trails off before she reconnects with the fury that made her resign after eight years in the shadow cabinet and on the frontbench, the first female Muslim cabinet minister. “I wasn’t naive enough to think we could resolve that matter but I did think we could be human enough to show compassion. Our inability to condemn that act in clear terms was a turning point.”

In her first major interview since stepping down, Lady Warsi, 43, the daughter of a businessman who emigrated from Pakistan as a mill worker – or in her words, “the girl from Dewsbury who ended up at the top table in the land” – says she has been relaxing since resigning in August as a Foreign Office minister, after criticising the government’s “morally indefensible” stance on Gaza.

It is soon evident, however, that much of her time has been spent grappling with one of the most intractable issues in geopolitics: the Middle East peace process.

She is at pains to describe how she thinks the government has lost “its moral compass” over the issue. Warsi understands the need for a nuanced diplomatic dialogue with Israel, but says Cameron’s government has been satisfied to pursue a “relationship for the sake of having a relationship” with Israel while being unwilling or unable to kickstart the stalled peace talks. Britain’s commitment to a negotiated two-state solution was, she says, starting to fade so rapidly that the “window had almost closed”.

She makes clear that she is far from an isolated voice within her party. Apart from Foreign Office officials and other senior Tories, Warsi identifies a wave of newer recruits who find the government’s approach misguided. “I see lots and lots of candidates coming through who are unhappy.” Does she regret her resignation? “Not at all, I’m not a career politician, I fell into politics in many ways. I was somebody who worked across issues and was quite prepared to work across parties to get those issues resolved. For me, politics is an opportunity to make a difference. If it becomes about protecting your own interests, there are better ways of earning an income than being in frontline politics.”

She says the realisation that the government had failed to put pressure on Israel to recognise Palestinian sovereignty and the collapse of last year’s negotiations led by US secretary of state John Kerry had started to depress her long before she left the Foreign Office. Towards the end of her ministerial tenure, she found the government’s line intolerable. “You are being asked to say things at the dispatch box that are fundamentally against what you believe. You could see I was uncomfortable, physically I looked uncomfortable at the dispatch box. I also felt like a cheat, putting down on record in history, in the form of Hansard, views I didn’t hold. I had to be prepared to step away from that.”

The importance of living with your decisions must be central to any politician, she says, leaning over the coffee table. It is plain that she believes some former high-ranking colleagues do not wrestle with such moral imperatives.

This self-described “northern mum with five kids” commands a large and potent constituency. Recent weeks have seen her strengthening those ties, sounding out views from across the Muslim community, including conservative figures whom the government had banned her from contacting as a minister.

In 2010 Warsi was named as one of the world’s “500 most influential Muslims” by the Middle East thinktank the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Amman, Jordan. Her popularity, perhaps, can be measured by the fact that the tweet announcing her resignation was marked as a favourite on 17,000 accounts within hours.

She insists her resignation was not a knee-jerk response. The seeds of disaffection were sown when Britain chose not to officially recognise Palestinian statehood in November 2012, after the UN general assembly had approved recognition de facto. Britain merely indicated that it would start “serious negotiations” to push the peace process forward.

It never happened. The decision of former foreign secretary William Hague to stand down, a month before Warsi, robbed the department, she says, of ministerial experience and intellect and from there, things started “moving backwards.” Momentum to solve the Palestinian issue is now so flat that “there is no show in town”.

On domestic issues such as extremism and the government’s approach to counter-radicalisation, Warsi refuses to be drawn. “My argument is that extremists are more of a threat to British Muslims than the community as whole; not only do those people cause us harm like everybody else – they’re indiscriminate – but also the backlash. It’s a double whammy. British Muslims have more incentive to rid society of extremists.”

However, she says there is mounting concern among Muslim organisations that the government is failing to engage enough and build trust. “If the British government doesn’t keep the majority of the community on board then they are not helping resolve the issue.”

For her, the issue is how will Islam evolve and overcome an atmosphere of mistrust and misunderstanding towards it. “What will British Islam look like for my kids, grandkids? Chinese Islam is very different to Saudi Islam; the challenge for our times is how we find this place.”

In the immediate future, she says, the challenge is tackling the normalisation of anti-Islamic views among some, an Islamophobic mindset she referred to in 2011 as having “passed the dinner table test”.

Another concern is the threat to repeal the Human Rights Act and withdraw from the European convention on human rights. “I hope we don’t move away from our commitment to human rights, domestically and internationally. We have to be careful we aren’t seen as defenders of human rights overseas but behave differently at home.”

But there is some gratifying news for Cameron’s cabinet. Since she resigned, rumours have abounded that Warsi has kept a a warts-and-all diary that would be used to embarrass and expose Cameron’s upper-class coterie before next year’s election. Warsi says that, although there will be a book, such rumours are unfounded: “David and I have been in touch and he knows that they are no kiss-and-tell memoirs.” Her next career move is unclear, Warsi hinting only that she will be helping to campaign for greater religious freedoms.

She admits to being “nervous” about political life away from the frontline, but the Tories’ opponents know the party has lost a valued cabinet member. Not being white remains the single best predictor that somebody will not vote Conservative. Only 16% of ethnic minorities voted for the Tories in 2010.

Warsi was an antidote to assertions the Tories are not close to minority groups. Her resignation was never likely to mean her voice would be silenced. Now she is back, it might even be louder than before.

A LIFE IN POLITICS

Sayeeda Warsi was born on 28 March 1971 in Dewsbury, near Wakefield, the second of five daughters of Pakistani parents. Her father, Safdar Hussain, ran a bed manufacturing company.

She was educated at Dewsbury college and read law at the University of Leeds, then trained as a solicitor with the Crown Prosecution Service and Home Office before setting up her own practice.

In 2005, she was the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Dewsbury, becoming the first Muslim woman to be selected by the party. Though unsuccessful, she served as a special adviser to Michael Howard and was appointed by David Cameron as vice-chairwoman of the Conservative party. In 2007 she was made a life peer.

In 2010, she became the first Muslim to sit in the cabinet when she was named party co-chairwoman. She became minister of state at the Foreign Office and minister for faith and communities in a 2012 reshuffle. In August, she resigned from the government in protest at its policy on Gaza, describing it as “morally indefensible”.

Mehdi Hasan on Islamophobia and antisemitism: You won't change people's minds with data, facts and figures video

The Huffington Post UK's Mehdi Hasan and the Guardian's Jonathan Freedland discuss Islamophobia and antisemitism at a Guardian Live event at the Royal Institution in London on 15 September. Here, Mehdi speaks about the challenges of tackling bigotry when the tools of a usual argument – facts, case studies, statistics – do not work in the face of conspiracy theories

•

Guardian Live is our series of events, debates, interviews and festivals exclusively for Guardian members

Find out about future Guardian Live events here

Gaza reconstruction plan risks putting UN in charge of Israeli blockade

A UN-sponsored agreement for the reconstruction of Gaza is facing sharp criticism from senior international officials and NGOs, who say it will create a restrictive new monitoring regime for building materials that risks putting the UN in charge of a continuing Israeli blockade.

At the centre of the row is Israel’s insistence that basic goods such as cement, bricks and steel reinforcing – which it says have in the past been diverted by Hamas to build infiltration tunnels and bunkers – are “dual-use” materials with a military application.

Critics argue that plans for monitoring the import, storage and sales of building materials – including installing video cameras, setting up a team of international inspectors and the creation of a database of suppliers and consumers – are more appropriate for a suspect nuclear programme than a postwar reconstruction effort.

The agreement would also cede to Israel the right to approve, and potentially veto, major rebuilding projects, including their location.

The details of the agreement – leaked to the Guardian – and agreed between UN envoy Robert Serry, the Palestinian Authority and Israel, have so far been briefed to only a few senior UN officials.

Gaza, the scene of three destructive wars since 2008, has long faced severe Israeli restrictions on the import of building materials. There have been international calls for a full lifting of the Israeli blockade and restrictions on items such as concrete. However, the new regime would instead put it under even tighter controls.

Israel wants strict controls placed on building supplies entering Gaza as it fears Hamas will be able to rebuild its tunnels. Photograph: Adel Hana/AP

The criticism emerged as Serry was due to meet Palestinian and Israeli officials on Thursday in Ramallah before an international donor conference in Cairo, on 12 October, to discuss postwar reconstruction.

According to Palestinian estimates, Gaza will need almost $8bn (£5bn) in aid to rebuild after the recent 50-day war that claimed more than 2,000 Palestinian lives.

The disclosure of the content of the deal, drawn up by Serry in bilateral talks first with the Israeli government and then the Palestinian Authority, comes before talks to reach a more permanent truce in Gaza later this month, which is predicated on the Palestinian side on reconstruction and a loosening of the Israeli-imposed blockade.

Underlining the difficulties in the proposed arrangements, a UN risk assessment drawn up on 14 September to examine the feasibility of the monitoring scheme lists the likelihood of Israel reneging on agreements as “high risk” and potentially “catastrophic”.

A spokesman for the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said the mechanism was vital to prevent Hamas rebuilding its military infrastructure. “It is not just Israel that should want this arrangement,” said Mark Regev in response to the reports of criticism. “But NGOs and international humanitarian organisations should want this.

“No one has an interest in Hamas stealing building material and they have made clear in public statements that they want to rebuild their terror tunnels.”

He added: “There is no alternative. I believe it will work with goodwill. The wild card over implementation of this will be Hamas.”

Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s PM, believes the UN mechanism is vital to preventing Hamas rebuilding its military infrastructure. Photograph: Dan Balilty/AP

Despite criticism from some, other international officials involved in the discussions around the reconstruction told the Guardian that Israel was one of those pushing hardest to find a mechanism to get materials for reconstruction into Gaza.

The UN’s deputy special envoy, James Rawley, said: “If implemented this agreement has the potential to have a significant impact on the lives of people in Gaza,” before adding: “The proof will be in the pudding, we recognise that.”

Another senior official involved in the discussions said: “No one is under any illusions about the difficulties involved in the process. The UN has been at the forefront of advocacy for lifting the blockade. We recognise that this is not a full lifting of the blockade, but it could be a major step in the right direction.”

The disclosures come at a time of growing Palestinian anger towards international bodies in Gaza from people desperate to see progress.

According to the document – titled the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism – the temporary arrangement would set up a tripartite “high level steering team” to oversee monitoring. Of five “overarching” priorities listed, the first is “to satisfy Israeli security concerns related to the use of construction and dual use material, particularly as related to the monitoring and tracking of material for large-scale works”.

For large-scale works – including schools and factory reconstruction – imports would be covered by the UN’s most stringent counter-terrorism rules, with Israel being asked to process all “project submissions”, albeit within an agreed time. The most stringent oversight will be reserved for concrete and brick-making factories where all “security measures will be taken in accordance with government of Israel specifications”.

That envisages “constant presence of the UN and daily inspections by a UN international staff member in the concrete mixing factory” as well as video monitoring of premises.

Equally controversial for Palestinians is likely to be the requirement for homeowners needing building materials to register their ID number, address/locality [and] family status for a database that will be available to Israeli officials, including its intelligence agencies.

Despite the urgency of reconstruction in Gaza, the mechanism – designed to ensure the import into Gaza of aggregates, steel reinforcing bars and cement – for both large-scale reconstruction and small-scale projects is “predicated on the establishment of a central IT database” that would register the “import and transfer” of building materials that it suggests would need to be set up by a body like a major auditing company.

According to the assessment of one major international NGO that has seen the deal the arrangements would “simply not be feasible”.

“It is entirely based on Israeli discretion and goodwill,” said a source who has seen the text of the agreement. “There is no mechanism for dispute resolution and it also doesn’t factor in the realities on the ground, either in terms of security or Gaza’s politics.

“It sees the Palestinian Authority administering this with no mention of Hamas at a time when the unity government is not even administering the local ministries in Gaza and when there has been no rationalising of key departments. Ultimately all this does is transfer the responsibility for maintaining the blockade of Gaza to the UN.”

Chris Gunness, a spokesman for UNRWA – the biggest UN agency in Gaza – said: “We welcome the new mechanism and hope it becomes functional as soon as possible to ensure that Gaza’s reconstruction needs are fully met.

“While the mechanism must facilitate full reconstruction it cannot be a substitute for the complete lifting of the blockade including for exports, a position which UNRWA and the international community strenuously demands.

“Gaza has moved beyond the realm of humanitarian action alone. We also need political action to resolve the underlying causes of the conflict. Without this and accountability for violations of international law by all parties to the conflict we fear a return to the unsustainable pattern of blockade, rockets and destruction.”

Gaza portraits: the one thing I saved from the rubble

A child’s toy, a torn school book, a rolled prayer mat, some tracksuit bottoms, a battered saucepan, odd shoes – so many odd shoes – half hidden in the rubble. And the rubble itself, mountains of it: homes reduced to grey lumps of masonry, mangled metal, shards of glass.

Aleh: “This is my second-favourite toy, Foo. She sleeps with me at night and I covet her like she is my own daughter:” Aleh’s family now sleep in the bathroom, one of the only rooms left in their house. Aleh’s favourite toy, a bridesmaid doll, was lost in the wreckage. Photograph: Jo Harrison/ActionAid/ActionAid

Amid the devastation of Gaza, in the final days of this summer’s war, were survivors of the 50-day military onslaught. Families – old men, pregnant women, solemn-eyed children – stumbled about the ruins of their lives, looking for anything that could be salvaged.

“I was bought this bike for my 15th birthday. I used to ride it to market to buy food for the family.” Mussab’s sister, Duaa, was killed in a rocket attack. His brother is calling his unborn daughter Duaa in her memory. Photograph: Jo Harrison/ActionAid/ActionAid

In Shujai’iya, the area of Gaza City that saw some of the worst fighting as Israeli tanks and bulldozers bludgeoned through the neighbourhood, the destruction was a vision of hell. Factories, shops, houses and apartment buildings were pulverised, streets torn up. Many families hung signs amid the rubble, bearing their names and phone numbers, and sometimes the number of rooms or people who had lived there. This was done partly with an eye to future compensation, but also a poignant marker: this was my home.

Ghada: “The only precious thing I have left is my baby. As soon as my house was hit, she was the first and only thing I took.” Ghada now lives in a school. She desperately needs food for herself and milk and clothes for the baby. Photograph: Jo Harrison/ActionAid/ActionAid

In other places, shells and airstrikes had destroyed one part of a house while leaving other rooms virtually intact. Sometimes missiles tore open a view into a living room or bedroom; like a doll’s house whose facade had been opened up, you could inspect the occupant’s choice of furnishings from a distance.

Nadia: “This is a piece of the bed I bought my son and his bride to be. They were due to marry in a few days.” Thirteen members of Nadia’s family were killed in the conflict. She and her family now sleep on the roof of her brother’s home. Photograph: Jo Harrison/ActionAid/ActionAid

One day during the war, a man invited me to see the damage to his house in Gaza City. He led me up a crumbling stone staircase to the roof, where nine people, including six children, had been killed when a missile struck as they were making pizza. Only after we had inched our way down to the ground floor did he tell me that his wife and four children were among the dead. “I have lost everything,” he said.

Rodian and Mohammed: “This wedding gift: what can I say? It’s ruined. All of our memories are gone.” Rodian and Mohammed took refuge at his father’s apartment but lack kitchen equipment, water and food. Photograph: Jo Harrison/ActionAid/ActionAid

But some managed to retrieve a few possessions. These photographs, taken by the charity ActionAid in the days following the 25 August ceasefire, show a pitiful clutch of items cherished by their owners. In Gaza – after three wars in the past six years – you learn fast to hold tight to small things.

Marzan: “These bricks symbolised the future for my family. Now I’m left paying the debt for somewhere I can’t live in.” All of Marzan’s family fled the night the shelling began; they are currently sheltering in a nearby school. Photograph: Jo Harrison/ActionAid/ActionAid

Mediterranean people-smuggling disaster: a survivors story

The reason I tried to leave Gaza is due to lack of finances, work and the war. I travelled with some relatives, the son of my uncle Mohamed Garuxa, 24, the son of my sister, Munir Garuxa, five years old, and my brother Ami Doghmosh, 24 years old. We were approximately 300 people on a small vessel. The son of my sister died in my hands and I do not know what happened to the rest.

The husband of my sister, Mahmud El Garuxa, lives in Belgium. When I arrived in Europe, I wanted to live a normal life, learn a trade and try to find a job, then bring all my family to Europe.

With regards to my journey; a certain person, known as Abu Xaraf, helped us get out of Gaza. I paid him $4,000 (£2,500). This person is not a person of my family. Many people know of this person and the fact that he does this work. I got his mobile number and called him. He sent a person known as Abu Firas. He told me that the route is simple. I gave him my passport and the money.

I met Abu Firas in the village of Khan Yunis which is close to Gaza. I met him around two weeks ago. I left Gaza at night time in a vehicle which was sent by by Abu Xaraf. Together with my brother, my uncle’s son and the son of my sister we got into the car and we spent a day and a half travelling. We then arrived in a place in Egypt – I am unable to say where. It was close to the sea. We then boarded a vessel together with other people.

Initially we saw two small vessels which were boarding people and taking them to a larger vessel. This always took place at night. The smugglers would take around 20-30 people. In total there were around 300 people. After around a day and a half, a vessel arrived, which was much smaller than the original big vessel and we were told to board this vessel.

We had been out at sea for approximately three to four days when a fishing boat approached and told us to stop. They also threw a metal object at our captain and this same boat then came close to the side of our vessel and hit our boat. As a result, our vessel capsized and this fishing vessel kept on circling us and laughing.

I think this boat was from Egypt. The boat also had a number, 109, and there were approximately 10 persons aboard this vessel and from their accent we could tell that they were Egyptians from the town of Damietta. This was confirmed by our captain, who, before he died told us that these people were from that town because of their accent.

Within a few seconds, our vessel sunk and the other fishing vessel left. We were out at sea for approximately four to five days and the people who were on board started to die.

In these days, no other vessel could be seen out at sea but on the last day, a French vessel passed by us and when they spotted us they approached us and took us on board. When we were aboard the French vessel (Antarctica), a helicopter came and brought us medicine and we were physically checked. They then left and came back for us and brought us here. We were the only three people saved at sea. We spent two days on the French vessel.

When asked as to why the other fishing vessel overturned the vessel we were on, I can say that at one point it seemed as though our captain got into an argument with the people on the other fishing vessel due to the fact that the captain did not accept that all the people present on the vessel would fit in the second vessel since this was visibly smaller.

At one point our captain made a call and the person on the line stated that if the captain does not follow the order, his family will be attacked. The captain calmed us down and told us that we were going to remain on the vessel and the other vessel left. We proceeded with our journey. The incident then took place two to three hours after.

Maamon Dogmoush was speaking to an interviewer from the International Organisation for Migration in the Safi detention centre, Malta

Devil and the deep blue sea: how Mediterranean migrant disaster unfolded

T he first the crew of the Antarctica knew of the disaster was a radio request to help a search and rescue operation. There were bodies in the water 200 miles off the coast of Malta. Two other ships – the Verdi and the Japan – were already at the scene, picking people out of the sea. The Antarctica was swiftly diverted and took command until the arrival of coastguard and naval ships.

The timesheet of the rescue makes for chilling reading, a catastrophe recounted in staccato phrases.

The Verdi picks up four people in the water, the log recalls, but one of them is dead. An empty liferaft is spotted. And then a body in the water. A woman and two children are rescued by the Japan.

A few hours later, the crew of the Antarctica hear voices. Three people are retrieved. Over 24 hours, 11 people would be plucked alive out of the waves, a two-year-old girl among them, and taken to Malta, Crete and Italy.

One of the survivors was Hameed Barbakh. A resident of Khan Younis in southern Gaza. He would later describe to the Guardian the tragedy that so nearly cost him his life. In perhaps the most egregious episode yet of a deadly year on the Mediterranean, a fishing boat packed with hundreds of migrants had been rammed by another smuggling vessel when those on board refused to get on a smaller boat. As hundreds drowned, Barbakh survived by clinging to a lifejacket he found near the wreck.

His story meshed with those of other groups of people from Gaza whose relatives were caught in the grim incident. Their stories illuminate two startling new details about the perilous Mediterranean odysseys which this year have claimed the lives of more migrants than ever before. The first is that as well as countless Syrians, Afghans and Africans trying to make the perilous journey, a surprising number of refugees are from Gaza. The second is that in order to escape, they must put their lives in the hands of a wealthy, influential and ruthless smuggling gang. Rarely has the expression “devil and the deep blue sea” seemed more appropriate.

Khan Younis, Gaza

Map of Khan Younis

A few weeks before the sinking, the main street of Abasan Jadeed, on the eastern edges of the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis, was on the frontline of the most recent war with Israel, scarred by shrapnel and bomb craters. These days, however, it is the locus of a different tragedy.

Three households within the space of a few hundred metres are coming to terms with a new type of grief every bit as shattering as the recent war. Seven members of three families are missing following the sinking.

And not just in Abasan Jadeed. Across Khan Younis and the neighbouring city of Rafah on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, in Gaza City and elsewhere, desperate families are seeking news of the missing. Some put the number at more than 200, mostly young Gazans trying to flee a life that had become “unbearable”. Gaza has been crushed by three wars with Israel in the past six years, and decimated by seven years of economic blockade. Prospects for the 1.7 million people living on a strip of land less than one-third the size of New York City are vanishingly small. People want out.

On the second floor of an apartment block, Nawal Asfour is waiting for news of her son, Ahmad. It is the third time she has had to confront the fear that she might lose him.

The first, she explains, was when Ahmad, then a teenager, was critically injured by a missile in the last days of Israel’s war against Gaza in 2009.

Nawal Asfour holds a picture of her missing son, Ahmad. Photograph: Peter Beaumont/Guardian

Ahmad lost three fingers on one hand, a section of bone in his arm and his pancreas. She thought she had lost him again when he went to Israel for treatment, only to be arrested at the border and jailed for three years on suspicion of being a member of Islamic Jihad.

Nawal, who has cancer, is not convinced there will be a third reunion.

In some respects Ahmad personifies the story of Gaza: hopeless, angry, unable to recover; desperate to be anywhere but within its narrow confines.

“He was sick to death of how things were for him here,” says Nawal. “He never really recovered from his injuries. Someone said to him if he could get to Europe, he could get free treatment.”

So Ahmad, who had returned to Gaza from Israeli prison in 2012, crossed the Rafah border into Egypt with three members of his family who had been injured during the most recent war with Israel, taking advantage of Egypt’s agreement to allow medical evacuation. In Cairo he called to tell his family he needed money to pay for hospital treatment. Only later did they realise he needed the $2,000 (£1,200) to pay an infamous broker based in Alexandria, a man nicknamed Abu Hamada who is well known for getting people from Gaza through Egypt and the Nile Delta town of Damietta, and onwards to Italy.

And it is not only the Asfours who are looking for missing family members. Across Gaza last week families were looking for relatives, most of whom had been smuggled through tunnels into Egypt. If, for a brief period, Gaza’s secretive illegal railroad to Europe had been spoken of as a source of hope, now it inspires only fury and bitterness.

The families of the missing are angry at the people smugglers, and angry at Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Their ire is directed too at a Europe they say has done too little to help them find their relatives.

“I was worried about Ahmad because he has no pancreas but they said they would keep an eye on him,” said his father, Samir. “Then four days later my son who lives in Germany got a phone call from Ahmad, who said he was on the ship and a day from landing in Italy. That was the last we heard from him.”

The tunnels

A Palestinian climbs out of a tunnel on the Egyptian border. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/Antonio Olmos

On the road to Rafah, at Gaza’s southernmost end, sits an unfinished mansion, empty and incongruous amid the general dereliction. It stands as a testament to the boom years of Gaza’s smuggling business with Egypt, when a canny tunnel operator could get rich transporting anything from cars to cattle and household goods.

It is a trade that relied on Egypt at least turning a blind eye, not least during the brief rule of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi. Those were the “good days”, remembered fondly in Gaza, when its economy boomed briefly. But following Morsi’s removal in a military-led coup in July 2013, Egypt clamped down on the flow of goods through Gaza’s tunnels.

And so the tunnel operators turned to a different, but equally lucrative, business – moving people out of Gaza rather than smuggling goods in.

The tunnel entrances are on the outskirts of town, running under the sandy hinterland next to the border: steep narrow shafts shored with concrete or timber connecting to claustrophobic passages that lead to Egypt. Although it was known that people could move through the tunnels, the scale of the exodus remained unclear, until now.

Off a sandy lane in Rafah lives Abu Fadi, a tunnel operator who sent two of his sons to Sweden before the latest 50-day war . He says he is not in the people smuggling game, but knows those who are; many are under house arrest, punished by Hamas for their part in a business that has shown Gaza in a poor light.

Rafah tunnels

“The people who own the tunnels fake the stamps,” Abu Fadi explains. He says this costs about $100, while passage through the tunnels costs another $400-$600. He adds that despite the fact tunnels are under Hamas’s control, it was easy to sneak people through; indeed, the latest conflict with Israel made it easier still as Hamas was distracted.

Hameed Barbakh also knew of Gaza’s smuggling tunnels before he decided to escape. Speaking from Italy, he explained he had even worked in them until the business of moving goods into Gaza was thwarted by the new military regime in Cairo. Unable to earn enough money to rent somewhere so he could marry his fiancee of six years, he headed to Europe in search of a better life. Like Ahmad Asfour, the people-trafficking contact he sought out was Abu Hamada and his agents in Gaza. “My first contact was a man who works with Abu Hamada,” explained Barbakh. “That’s who arranged to take me through the smuggling tunnels out of Gaza.”

For many of the missing the journey to Egypt starts at dawn. In the early morning gloaming, they descend into the network of subterranean passages that span the few hundreds metres across the Gazan border, into Egypt.

Through the Sinai

Electric powerlines cross an area of desert near Arish. Photograph: Ed Giles/Getty

For the migrants emerging from the tunnels, the contrast is stark: from one of the most overpopulated places on the planet to the barren expanse of Sinai.

The first stop in this arid place of poor farms and orchards clinging to the dry soil is Rafah, cut off by the border from its Palestinian counterpart.

According to those who have made the journey, the first destination is a safe house owned by friendly Egyptians. Then a driver, supplied by the smugglers, takes them to Arish, the regional capital, via back roads that avoid the military checkpoints blocking the roads of north Sinai. The fake immigration stamps in their passports will help if they are unlucky enough to hit a roadblock.

In Arish, there is a change of cars to vehicles that take them all the way to Alexandria. They cross the Suez canal by ferry with few questions asked and reach Alexandria, normally within 12 hours of leaving Gaza. Sometimes the journey is rapid. According to accounts given to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), three of the survivors picked out of the sea by the Antarctica – Ibrahim Awadallah, 25, Mohammad Awadallah, 23, and Maamon Dogmoush, 27 – emerged from the tunnels on Friday 12 September and were in Alexandria within a day of leaving Gaza, and at sea within another.

Alexandria

Sunset over Alexandria Photograph: Design Pics Inc/Rex/Design Pics Inc/Rex

There are good reasons why Alexandria has become a hub for those wanting to flee Gaza and Syria, and for other migrants trying to reach Europe, Egyptians and Africans among them. Its sprawling, ugly suburbs of crumbling high rises – like Miami and Palm Beach – are full of anonymous apartments in even more anonymous blocks, where landlords don’t ask questions for the right money, and where it is easy to hide those wishing to make the perilous journey to Italy. Equally important is its location. To its east and west are empty expanses of shoreline where small boats can come in close to shore and ferry those waiting to larger boats outside the coastal waters.

Hameed Barbakh takes up his story. “I was told when I reached Alexandria there was a place where I should go and wait to meet Abu Hamada’s people. After 10 minutes a man came and took me to an apartment with four others from Gaza. We waited for four days.”

Map of Alexandria Photograph: Guardian

In other apartments, unknown to Barbakh, were hundreds of others waiting to make the same journey arranged by Abu Hamada. Among them were Tariq and Osama, two fathers from Syrian refugee families who had escaped to Egypt. Arrested on a beach near Damietta on 6 September, they would be in prison when the migrant fishing vessel was rammed and sunk.

Like the Palestinians from Gaza, the smuggling network they had been put in touch with was the one run by Abu Hamada, reputedly a Palestinian-Syrian, who lived in Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus before the Syrian war who has become rich as a broker in the people smuggling business.

“They say he was just a normal guy in Syria,” Osama said after his release from detention, “but here he’s become very rich.” And not only rich, but a man reputedly with powerful connections in the police and security services.

Osama fills in more details – the numbers and names of the smuggling network supplied to the Guardian in Gaza: “Abu Ahmad”, also known as “Ibrahim”, another member of Abu Hamada’s close network; “Nizar al-Baba”, a Syrian, and an Egyptian known as “Ahmed”.

Beyond this group of wealthy brokers, there are more shadowy figures: boat operators and smugglers who make the Mediterranean crossing, in this case a ruthless figure known as “the Doctor”.

For Tariq and Osama – the latter of whom had sold his wife’s jewellery to make the trip – the wait for their ship was a long one. After five days in a suburb of Alexandria they were ferried with dozens of others in five curtained coaches to near Marsa Matrouh with masked smugglers in cars accompanying the coaches.

That day the smugglers said the weather was too bad, so they returned to Alexandria, to another block of flats, a routine that would be repeated for days.

“They fill five buses,” said Osama,” but only one or two reach the beach. It’s very well known that two buses get to reac