The Gaza Surf Club

In Gaza, if your alarm doesn’t wake you for the dawn patrol, the airstrikes probably will. In the coastal strip’s northern and eastern areas, the early morning mist conceals Palestinian militants launching rockets into Southern Israel. By 7 a.m. the Israeli retaliatory strikes usually start. Sometimes they come in the form of F-16s or drones; other times it’s artillery fire. Usually it’s both. This is a reality in Gaza. But, despite what the media would have you believe, it’s not the only reality. Along the Gazan coastline, the early morning rumble of conflict—as reliable as the call to prayer from the local mosque—goes almost unnoticed by the local surfers. (excerpt from The Gaza Surf Club article, SURFER magazine (US), September 2012. Text by Matthew Olsen. Photography by Alice Martins)