That One Time Israel Tried to Help Gaza

The “open-air prison” fiction leaves out some crucial facts about an agreement that never came to fruition.

photo: Emad El Byed/Unsplash

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This is a guest essay by Sheri Oz, an investigative writer documenting Israel and Israeli society.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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One of the most common claims made about Gaza is that Israel withdrew in 2005 only to turn it into an “open-air prison.”

The claim persists largely because a crucial chapter of the story has almost completely disappeared from public discussion.

Just two months after Israel completed its disengagement from Gaza, Israel and the Palestinian Authority reached an agreement, brokered by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, that envisioned Gaza taking an open and active part in the world economy. It included plans for expanded trade, freer movement, a seaport and, potentially, the reopening of Gaza’s airport.

That future never arrived, but it was the future being discussed.

I remembered hearing that, after the disengagement, Gaza was supposed to have a seaport and perhaps even an airport. More than a decade ago, I attended a talk given by one of the architects of the withdrawal. During the question period, I asked about it. The speaker dismissed the idea outright. I left the event wondering whether I had remembered incorrectly.

I figured that someone directly involved in the withdrawal must know better than I did. Perhaps I had misunderstood something. Perhaps I had confused a proposal with an agreement or remembered a plan that had never really existed. Still, the idea that Gaza was supposed to have a seaport and an airport niggled at me in the back of my mind for years.

After October 7th, as accusations against Israel multiplied, I finally decided to look for the evidence. Either I had imagined the entire thing, or I had remembered it correctly. I found the agreement.

On November 15, 2005, Israel and the Palestinian Authority signed the Agreement on Movement and Access, commonly known as the AMA. Brokered with the involvement of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the agreement was intended to improve the movement of people and goods following Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza while addressing Israel’s continuing security concerns.

The commitments were significant.

The Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt would operate under international supervision. Commercial crossings would be upgraded to facilitate Palestinian exports and imports. Bus and truck convoys were supposed to connect Gaza with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. And my memory of the seaport was correct.

The agreement affirmed that construction of a Gaza seaport could begin. It also recognized the importance of reopening Gaza’s airport and committed the parties to continuing discussions about the security arrangements that would make that possible.

Taken together, these provisions describe an agreed framework for increasing Gaza’s connection to the outside world.

Contemporary economic assessments anticipated that, if movement and access improved, Gaza could see rising employment, expanding agricultural and manufacturing exports, and a return to positive economic growth.

But none of this was unconditional.

The AMA depended explicitly on security cooperation. A United Nations report prepared in anticipation of Israel’s disengagement made that clear. The World Bank’s June 2004 paper observed that “a maximum Palestinian Authority effort to fulfill its security obligations under the Roadmap is needed if the donor community is to argue for a major easing of today’s closure regime. … It is clear that a revival of the private sector will not take place in an environment plagued by conflict with Israel and by domestic lawlessness.”

In late 2005, therefore, the expectation was straightforward: Movement, trade, and economic development would expand if security measures were respected.

It is important to note that the disengagement did not end every form of Israeli control over Gaza. Israel retained control over airspace, maritime security and certain external security functions. The AMA did not eliminate those arrangements. Rather, it sought to expand the movement of people and goods within that broader security framework.

Nor should the AMA be confused with what ultimately happened on the ground. It established a framework and a direction, not a guarantee of outcomes. Several of its provisions were implemented only partially. Others never progressed beyond the planning stage before the security and political situation deteriorated.

The AMA did not collapse in a single moment. It was gradually overtaken by events. The timeline begins even before Israel’s withdrawal.

Between 2000 and 2005, rocket attacks and other terrorist activity continued throughout the Second Intifada, establishing the unstable security environment in which the disengagement and the later AMA would take place.

In August and September of 2005, Israel completed its unilateral disengagement from Gaza. Approximately 8,000 Jewish civilian residents were evacuated, and Israel removed all permanent military installations from inside the Gaza Strip. For the first time since 1967, there were no Israeli civilian communities or permanent Israeli military bases inside Gaza.

The question is what would come next.

Two months after the disengagement is completed, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, with U.S. mediation, reach the Agreement on Movement and Access. The agreement called for the opening of Rafah, improvements to Gaza’s commercial crossings, bus and truck convoys between Gaza and the West Bank, the construction of a seaport, and further discussions on reopening the airport.

The vision is not one of sealing Gaza off from the world. It is one of gradually connecting Gaza to it.

In November 2005, the Rafah crossing opened under the supervision of the European Union Border Assistance Mission. For a brief period, one of the central provisions of the AMA was operating. Planning continued for the agreement’s other provisions, but implementation began to slow almost immediately from late 2005 through early 2006.

Rocket attacks from Gaza continued. Political instability grew. The Gaza–West Bank convoy system never began. Work on the seaport did not start. Discussions concerning the airport made no meaningful progress. The agreement was still alive, but the assumptions on which it depends were already being tested.

In January 2006, Hamas won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections, defeating Fatah (the party that runs the Palestinian Authority). The result dramatically changed the political environment in which the AMA was supposed to operate. An agreement negotiated between Israel and the Palestinian Authority now needed to contend with the electoral victory of an organization committed to armed conflict with Israel.

The following month, the newly elected members of the Palestinian Legislative Council were sworn in. Israel, the United States, and the European Union announced that they will not deal normally with a Hamas-led government unless Hamas renounced violence, recognized Israel, and accepted previous agreements. Those conditions were not accepted.

In March 2006, the Hamas cabinet was sworn in, forming the new Palestinian government. The political partner on the Palestinian side was now led by a movement that refuses to recognize Israel and rejects the diplomatic framework on which agreements such as the AMA were based.

After months of continued rocket fire from Gaza toward farms and towns in southern Israel, Hamas-led militants crossed the border into Israel. They killed two Israeli soldiers and kidnaped an IDF soldier named Gilad Shalit. Israel responded by launching Operation Summer Rains. The security situation deteriorated sharply, and the already fragile framework of the AMA began to unravel. Israel imposed a naval blockade and closed Rafah following security alerts. The European Union Border Assistance Mission suspended its operations.

Rafah did not remain permanently closed throughout this entire period. It reopened intermittently during 2006, with closures shaped by security concerns and coordination among Israel, Egypt, and the international monitors. Nevertheless, the dependable system of movement envisioned by the AMA no longer existed.

In summer and autumn of 2006, the agreement’s remaining provisions effectively stalled. The convoys did not operate. The seaport was not built. The airport remained closed. The broader plan for integrating Gaza into regional and international trade slipped further away.

In June 2007, Egypt closed the Rafah crossing. By this point, conflict between Hamas and Fatah was escalating toward open warfare inside Gaza. Hamas violently seized control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority after several days of fighting. Palestinian Authority representatives were thrown from rooftops. Fatah forces were expelled. The Palestinian political system split in two: Hamas controlling Gaza and Fatah continuing to control the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

The party with which Israel had negotiated the AMA no longer governed Gaza.

From June 2007 onward, Israel and Egypt imposed tighter border restrictions as the assumptions on which the AMA had been negotiated were no longer compatible with the security needs of either country. The agreement was not formally replaced by some alternative vision. It was simply overtaken by events. The seaport and airport projects disappeared from the diplomatic agenda.

It is worth noting that implementation was already strained before Hamas won the January 2006 election. Rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel continued during the months immediately following the disengagement.

It is also inaccurate to suggest that Rafah closed permanently in June 2006. The crossing continued to open intermittently and did not close on a more lasting basis until June 2007, amid Hamas’ violent seizure of Gaza.

Egypt’s security role was an essential part of the AMA. Egypt was not merely a passive observer standing on the other side of the border. It had its own concerns about weapons smuggling, Hamas, and Muslim Brotherhood (the parent organization of Hamas) activity in Sinai. When Egypt closed Rafah, it did so according to its own assessment of its national security interests.

This matters because the later border restrictions were not simply the implementation of some Israeli plan to turn Gaza into an “open-air prison.” They emerged from the collapse of the political and security framework that had been intended to govern Gaza’s opening to the world. History moves forward, not backward.

The missed opportunities of 2005 and 2006 cannot simply be revived. There is no way of knowing whether Gaza would have succeeded in becoming the fantasied “Singapore of the Mediterranean.” Perhaps the plan would have failed for other reasons. Perhaps corruption, political division, or poor governance would have prevented economic success. Perhaps the security arrangements would never have been adequate.

We cannot know. And, in any case, that is no longer the question today.

After October 7th, there is no going back to 2005. Decades of trust-building, including the re-education of the population, would have to take place before Israel could again consider leaving Gaza entirely, if it ever does.

The AMA demonstrates that the immediate post-disengagement vision was not one of Gaza’s permanent isolation. It was, rather, a vision of Gaza’s gradual integration into the regional and global economy. The plan included internationally supervised crossings, increased exports and imports, transport links with the West Bank, a seaport, and discussions about reopening the airport. That vision depended on security cooperation and a Palestinian governing authority willing and able to uphold previous agreements.

Those conditions did not survive.

To understand the conflict today — and to understand how the land and sea restrictions developed — the path originally laid out in 2005 must be part of the discussion. So must the story of why it was abandoned.

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