Shisha

This is the terrace of the Deira Hotel, where the Times reporters stay in Gaza. Gaza's upper middle class gather there in the evenings and Friday (the Muslim Sunday) to drink and eat and smoke apple-scented tobacco in water pipes. Both men and women smoke them these days.

The terrace overlooks a local beach that is strewn with junk and beyond it a small harbor for fishing boats. Israeli patrol boats sit further offshore firing shells into the water and thumping away with heavy machine guns when the fishing boats stray too far from shore. Gaza is under a naval blockade.

But families continue to use the beach. On my last afternoon in Gaza, I watched two young boys lead their bareback horses into the surf until they were swimming. The boys then tried to climb on the horses and ride them on the waves back into shore.

These are the waiters preparing the 'shisha,' which is what waterpipes are called in Arabic. They pack the bowl on top with tobacco and sit a red hot piece of charcoal on top.

Once they've got the tobacco burning, they cover the top.

Even Sky puffed a shisha in Egypt. You don't necessarily inhale. The smoke is blusish white and cool and very fragrant. I didn't smoke any while in Gaza, but I have many times before elsewhere in the middle east. It's quite relaxing.