With Israel and Gaza totally dominating the news agenda it prompts my own personal memories of the area particularly because it was in Gaza City that I first met my wife, Jacky.

This was in 1968 the year after the six day war when both of us were on a trip for students that had been organised by a body that existed to get backing for the then relatively new state of Israel.

We had flown in overnight and Gaza City, which had been taken the year before by the Israelis, was our first stopping point. We got out into the central square and it was clear that we were unwelcome. I was the first of our group to get behind the Israeli Defence Force vehicles that were looking after us because the situation looked far from secure.

The second of the party to get back into the bus was Jacky. We got talking and I discovered she was from Newcastle where I was due to start my journalistic career the following month.

We got married the following year.

Mike Smithson