Not many Americans ever see the inside of Gaza, that war-torn spit of no-man's land tucked between the southern edge of Israel and the northern flank of Egypt, and the ones that do usually come equipped with flak jackets or armored personal carriers or—at the very least—press credentials. Alex Klein, a sponsored skater from San Francisco, didn't have any of these things. But after hearing stories about surfing in the Middle East, he decided to make that the subject of his first documentary film, God Went Surfing With The Devil. After several weeks shooting in Israel, he knew his film wouldn't be complete if he didn't have footage of what may well be the most dangerous surf spot on earth. Which is how he found himself inside Gaza last May.

"The funny thing about Gaza," says Klein, "is that it's considered Shangri-La for Israeli surfers. They think it's some kind of wave paradise. It's just ten miles down the coast, but to hear them talk, it's got such mythical status you'd think it was Indo. I had to see for myself."

No one he met in Israel thought going to Gaza was a very good idea. They were sure he and his director of photography, Edward Chase, would be kidnapped or killed. Just days before they left, a Hamas-fired rocket took out an Israeli clinic and about 100 people had been injured. There was talk of a retaliatory Israeli incursion into Gaza. To make matters worse, Klein explains, "Those rockets came from a tripod and they look exactly like a camera setup. So, if we tried to film in Gaza there was a real threat that we'd be mistaken for terrorists and blasted."

But they weren't blasted or shot by snipers or held hostage—at least, not right away. Sure, Gaza was about the most awful place Klein has ever seen, but the surfers were something else entirely. "The water's freezing most of the time, no one has wax or wetsuits or even swimsuits, just jean shorts and biking shorts. We saw one guy out in Capri pants. Leashes are an old piece of rope. And they all share these two or three old, dinged-up shortboards and these three or four old windsurfers that they were riding like longboards."

Turns out the surf etiquette in Gaza isn't quite what it is in say, Southern California. The Palestinians have never really seen surfing. Everybody in the water paddles for the same wave, three or four guys pop up at once, turn towards each other and meet and high-five and then hold hands all the way to the beach. Still, they were stoked. "Everyone I met told me the same thing," says Klein. "There's no work and so much violence and no one can leave, but they come to the sea and surf and it makes them feel free."

For four days everything went perfectly, and then things stopped going perfectly. Heading down to the beach for one last round of interviews before returning to Israel, Klein and Chase drove past a police officer who saw their video equipment. Afraid they had been filming a nearby police station, the officer pulled them over. Klein tried to explain they weren't filming cops, but they had no press credentials, no official documents, and who the hell comes to Gaza to make surf movie anyway? Pretty soon they were surrounded by guys dressed in all black, carrying assault rifles and demanding they take a little trip together.

"There wasn't anything we could do," says Klein, "and this was everything we'd been warned about. We drove back to the police station and they marched us down these endless corridors and through courtyards and everywhere was Jihadi graffiti and martyr posters and heavily armed men. I figured I was about to spend the next ten years chained to a radiator."
This was not Klein's first trip to the Middle East. Back in 2004, Klein accepted an invitation from an Israeli pro skater named Arthur Rashkovan to come see Tel Aviv. Rashkovan, who is something of the unofficial Board Sports Ambassador to the Holy Land, let Klein in on a little secret. "Not only are the cops too busy to care about anyone sliding rails," recalls Klein, "but on Saturday, the Sabbath, they don't even work. Tel Aviv just turns into a giant skate park."

So Klein went and skated the streets and partied in the bars and generally had a grand old time. While there, Rashkovan told him about a project called Surfing 4 Peace he'd been working on. Surfing 4 Peace was a strange blend of talents. Ambassador Rashkovan was joined by another ambassador, Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz, the Israeli pro-peace organization OneVoice, and the eight-time world champion Kelly Slater. Together, they had a few goals in mind: smuggle a dozen soft-top longboards into the occupied territories as something of a good will gesture meant to unite Israeli and Palestinian surfers as well as give those Gaza grommets something to learn on.

While Israel has warm waters and 170 miles of coastline, that coastline is served by a Mediterranean Sea that doesn't often put out, and when she does it's usually disorganized, always soft and head-high at its best. There are better spots around, like the beach-front community of Ashkelon. The problem is, in March of this year, Iran started supplying Hamas militants with a new kind of rocket capable of soaring the ten miles between Gaza and Ashkelon. Since there's a power plant on the coast of Ashkelon, it's become something of a favorite Hamas target, and the beach bears the brunt of the attacks. Then, of course, Israel returns the favor, and Gaza's fledgling surf community stops holding hands to the beach and starts running for cover.

It was this community that received the initial Surfers 4 Peace board offering in 2004. And it was this community that drew Klein back in May, when Rashkovan told him he planned to up the ante and smuggle 24 boards into Gaza. This inspired Klein to make his first documentary about Israeli surfers and Palestinian surfers and how absurdly difficult it is to sneak 24 surfboards into Gaza. "It's not easy," reports Klein. "The Israelis have put up a 'humanitarian' blockage of Gaza. Only food and fuel and bare essentials get through—and surfboards are not considered bare essentials."

Klein's visit began in Tel Aviv. "It's a strange city. The threat of annihilation is everywhere. Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran. The local's fight back with the only rational response: Go out and do a dozen vodka shots and dance 'til dawn."

He also discovered that there's something different about Israeli surfers. "The place is too small for localism, but there's no rules, no line-ups. When a wave comes everyone paddles for it. The whole country is filled with alpha-males. Give them a surfboard and their main goal is to be the one to scream the loudest and scare other takers off the wave. And what are you going to do? The guy to your left is a trained sniper and the guy to your right the Israeli equivalent of a Navy Seal. No one ever gives an inch."

Back in the Gaza police station, the guys with the masks and assault rifles weren't giving an inch, either. Klein tried showing them the footage but kept running into the same (and, really, totally reasonable) response: Who comes to Gaza to make a surf flick? Things were spiraling out of control and all Klein could think of was the bottle of whiskey in his backpack. Booze is treated like hard drugs in Gaza, and if anyone decided to search their bags, the situation would get far worse.

Finally, a superior officer arrived who, unbeknownst to Klein and Chase, actually spoke English. While his officers were translating their responses to him in Arabic, he was listening to Klein and Chase talk to each other in English. "It took him about five minutes to figure out that we were way too stupid to be Israeli intelligence," says Klein. "All of a sudden he starts laughing and apologizing and saying it's been a big misunderstanding."

Released from the cop shop, the crew flew down to the beach to say their goodbyes. Klein passed the whiskey off to a Palestinian Christian (there are a few in Gaza) who was bemoaning the fact that his daughter was getting married in a month and he had no way to properly celebrate. Then they got the hell out of dodge. As for those 24 surfboards? Klein won't say much beyond, "You'll have to see the movie."