What was the process like in terms of applying for the Israeli military permit? Did you experience any problems with border control moving in and out of Israel/Gaza? Did you take your own laptop? What's the internet like? I'm assuming you don't get mobile coverage?
There are ground rules every mentor had to agree to before going. We could not go anywhere unaccompanied - Who's rule is this?
For the permit, all the basics + scan of passport, LinkedIn URL, my parents' names, and my paternal grandfather's name (!).
No one had any problems at the border. Everyone is super professional and courteous. Those that were muslim and/or of palestinian decent took slightly longer.
I took my own laptop. The only different thing is you have to leave it open (but not unlocked) when it goes through the scanner.
We were mostly confined inside the incubator or a hotel so we had wifi most of the time. I think it's 2G or 3G otherwise. Not sure if by an Israeli carrier or a Palestinian one.
The rules are set by the parent organization, Mercy Corps. They receive the bulk of their funding from USAID and my guess is those ground rules are impacted by that.
It's a special case of a more general (Israeli) bullshit detection technique. They'll ask something unexpected, but reasonable enough that an honest person would be able to say the answer immediately. The idea is that you bait a person presenting false information into revealing that they are lying. Security will ask a sequence of inane questions that a truthful person should be able to answer immediately. If a person being questioned grows shifty, nervous-looking, starts sweating, stops making eye-contact, or shows any other sign of illegitimacy, then the questioning will continue until (il)legitimacy is established. It is not a flawless method (see end of comment) but it usually works. It is virtually impossible to nail every single aspect of a BS story. If you're 100% legitimate, then you'll probably have no problems recalling things like your grandfather's name or the synagogue you were Bar-Mitzvah'd at. I'm a pale South African Jew - I was asked that.
Example:
Security: Are you a member of a Hebrew congregation?
Person: Yes, such and such a synagogue
Security: Who is the Rabbi there?
A legit person might say "Oh it's Rabbi so-and-so", but if a person hesitates, and has to think, and blurts out an answer like "Rabbi Cohen" then it is less likely they are being forthcoming.
In some sense, this is a very rough mental-Bayesian process of probability updating. A person arrives at the border / El-Al check-in. Security assigns some prior probability p_0 that a person should be allowed access, and via a string of questions, amongst other techniques, a posterior probability p_n that that person should be on that flight / in Israel is established.
LinkedIn URL most likely was instead of a written CV. Wish companies would accept this.
As for the rest, I don't know but I hear they have some issues both with rockets as well as (often) clueless western demonstrants so getting being careful and getting good background information on visitors does sound like the right thing to do.
There are ground rules every mentor had to agree to before going. We could not go anywhere unaccompanied - Who's rule is this?
So. Many. Questions!