Under a Gaza City window, a sign for a dentist’s office, likely dating from before 1948, is in Arabic, English and Hebrew.

The Hamas-run Palestinian Authority in the besieged Gaza Strip made headlines earlier this year when it decided to make the Hebrew language a compulsory subject in the territory’s schools.

The move was surprising, given that there is virtually no direct contact between Palestinians in Gaza and Hebrew-speaking Israelis, and just months earlier Palestinian resistance organizations in Gaza had fought back fiercely against the latest Israeli aggression.

Boxes of produce with Hebrew writing, imported from Israel, are visible in all of Gaza’s markets.

There is some background to this: some Hamas leaders learned to speak Hebrew in Israeli prisons, and thousands of older Palestinians in Gaza are conversant in Hebrew as a result of having worked in Israel as laborers when that was still a possibility.

Arabic and Hebrew have a lot of similarities and, as the BBC reported, the students learning it at school “seem to have taken to it quickly.”

“It is very easy,” 14-year-old Nadine al-Ashi told the BBC. “It is easier than English, it is not difficult at all.” That matches my own experience as an Arabic-speaker who studied Hebrew. If you know Arabic, Hebrew will follow quickly.

Yet during my visit, I did not detect any traces of Hebrew in Gaza Arabic as one finds among Palestinian citizens of Israel, where quite a few Hebrew loan words and idioms have come into day-to-day spoken Arabic.

But after my visit to Gaza, I think there’s another reason that the decision to teach Hebrew might not be so surprising after all: the Hebrew language, though not used in Gaza, isvisible everywhere, evidence of the ongoing colonial and occupier-occupied relationship between Israel and the Gaza Strip.

Hebrew is everywhere you look in Gaza

With Gaza’s forced dependency on goods imported from Israel (except for those that come through tunnels), Israeli goods – labeled in Hebrew – are ubiquitous.

I also saw some Hebrew graffiti left by occupation forces on Israeli-built fortifications near the Rafah crossing – but I was not quick enough with the camera to get pictures.

During my visit no one commented specifically on the presence of Hebrew (as opposed to Israeli goods which were a topic of discussion).

Is it simply a fact of life under Israeli occupation and siege that people living in Gaza don’t notice any more?

I found it fascinating, and these photos show some of the many places where Hebrew appears in Gaza – just about everywhere you look.

There are few alternatives to Israeli products in the Gaza Strip. Israel allows imports — because they benefit its companies — while preventing Gaza’s export trade.

Israeli chocolate milk at the Abu Dallal supermarket in Nuseirat.

In Gaza City’s second-hand clothes market: a cast off t-shirt from a Zionist youth movement depicts all of historic Palestine as belonging to Israel.

Many vehicles in Gaza, imported second-hand from Israel, still display stickers and decals in Hebrew.

Access covers all over Gaza City sidewalks still say “Ministry of Communications” (misrad hatikshoret) in Hebrew.

A door lock in Maghazi refugee camp.

Maximum and minimum – in Hebrew.

Fire extinguisher in a Gaza City building.

When I tried to configure the TV in my hotel room, it gave me instructions in Hebrew.

Because Internet service in Gaza comes via Israeli service providers, google.com often redirects to google.co.il, rather than “Google Palestine” (google.ps)