Dementors Leave Gaza Strip; ‘Our Work Here Is Done’

Rafah Crossing, Gaza Strip, February 10 – This morning saw the last of the Dementors cross the border into Egypt, marking the end of the group’s sixty-six-year mission in the coastal enclave.

Since fighting began in late 1947 between Egyptian Arab forces and the isolated Jewish kibbutz of Kfar Darom, the Gaza Strip has been a major focus for the Dementors, creatures who nourish themselves by sucking the joy and optimism out of people. While initially only a small contingent of Dementors was stationed in and around the territory, beginning in 1987 they began to multiply in earnest, sparking unrest and misery that continued to grow in waves.

Finally, last week the Dementors determined that Gaza could provide no more joy to its residents, and the unit organized a redeployment. The withdrawal marks only the third time that Dementors have thoroughly exhausted an area’s supply of happiness and left nothing but depression and despair: the two previous occasions were in the fourteenth century, when the Black Plague swept across Europe, wiping out much of the population; and during the early-nineteenth-century Napoleonic wars in Russia, when the defenders’ scorched-earth strategy and the unusually cold winter wrought desolation and misery among everyone involved.

The Gaza mission was initially set to end several years earlier, but Israel’s withdrawal from the area in 2005 sparked renewed joy among the Palestinian residents, necessitating an extension of the mission and an infusion of reinforcements from the Dementors’ strongholds in Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. Now, after several more years of Dementor-generated Hamas mismanagement, Egyptian hostility, and clumsy attempts to blame Israel for defending itself, the contingent of soul-suckers has set its sights on other worthy venues.

Already, scouts have reported rich potential in Syria, which ranks high on the Dementors’ list of upcoming feasting grounds, but smaller forces have been active elsewhere and would welcome more assistance. The other candidate locations for redeployment include Afghanistan and Detroit.