Finance Ministry on Monday barred Israeli fruits and vegetables from entering the Gaza Strip on Monday, according to the spokesman for the Fruit Growers Association. The move is likely to cost Israeli fruit growers NIS 3-5 million a day, according to the association.
The Hamas decision will also make it harder for Palestinians to keep fruits and vegetables in their diet, particularly those items not grown in Gaza, according to Shlomo Dror, spokesman for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories.
Upon hearing that Palestinian private contractors on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing planned to adhere to the prohibition, Israeli businessmen did not send out the scheduled 60 trucks of produce, Dror told The Jerusalem Post. The fruit and vegetable ban is the latest in a set of anti-Israel moves by Hamas, including continued mortar fire on the crossing to keep Kerem Shalom closed.
On Saturday, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said, "We are against opening the Zionist-controlled crossing of Kerem Shalom." He added that its use was part of a conspiracy by Israel and the pro-American Fatah leadership in Ramallah against the Palestinians in Gaza.
Well then. That seems pretty definitive but today Ha’aretz carries this report based on a World Bank meeting held today predicting the economic collapse of the Gaza Strip unless the Israelis open the borders:
The World Bank said on Thursday the prolonged closure of Israel's border crossings with Hamas-controlled Gaza could lead to the coastal strip's "irreversible" economic collapse. The international lending agency delivered that stark assessment during a closed-door meeting of aid groups and private sector organizations.Israel has largely closed the Karni commercial crossing, Gaza's economic lifeline, in an effort to isolate Hamas after it seized control of the Gaza Strip a month ago.
Egypt has also kept mainly shut Gaza's border crossing with the Sinai since mid-June. Israel has allowed humanitarian aid into the territory through smaller crossings. While aid groups said this should be sufficient to head off a food shortage in the territory of 1.5 million people, they warned Gaza's economy would be devastated.
Almost all Gaza businesses depend on imported raw materials and other supplies that must pass through the strip's shuttered crossings with Israel. "The pillars of Gaza's economy have weakened over the years. Now, with a sustained closure on this current scale, they would be at risk of virtually irreversible collapse," Faris Hadad-Zervos, the World Bank's acting country director for the West Bank and Gaza, told the aid groups.
A copy of the World Bank's presentation was obtained by Reuters from a participant in the meeting."A solution must be reached very soon, if not immediately... Otherwise, Gaza's dependence on humanitarian assistance could become a long-term and comprehensive situation. These impacts will be difficult to reverse," Hadad-Zervos said.
According to statistics compiled by the Palestine Trade Center and the Palestinian Federation of Industries, more than 3,190 Gaza businesses have temporarily shut down in the last month. Some 65,800 workers have also been temporarily laid off. Up to 54 percent of employment in Gaza is generated by the private sector, representing more than 100,000 jobs.
Aha, are we to presume prior to the Hamas takeover of the Gaza the strip was a blossoming oasis of economic self-sufficiency? And just why is it imperative for the Israelis to open commercial border crossing which are under constant mortar fire? Hamas obviously wants them closed and has quite plainly issued statements to that effect.
Egypt shares a border with Gaza, and anything the Gazans need to be imported from Israel could just as easily be acquired from the Egyptians. Maybe its time for the Egyptians to feel a little of the pressure which is routinely brought to bear on the Israelis.
And while I appreciate the irony of the poverty pimps meeting in Israel to discuss the impending humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip which lies under direct control by Hamas; has any of the perpetual aid-givers stopped to consider that Hamas should be contacted and asked for their direct in-put? After all, the Gaza Strip lies within their area of authority.
If the Palestinians are ever going to have any autonomy or control over their own lives; self-sufficiency and establishing an economy separate and apart from the Israelis should be the number one priority or consideration. Of course, it would help if the international community wouldn’t insist on infantizing the Palestinians at every turn of the screw.
1 comment:
I didn't know that Gaza had an economy.
Or that it was Israel's responsibility to build it.
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