Gaza blockade: no goats, no jam, no coriander
Updated on 06 June 2010
Somewhere in Gaza, someone may once have tried to fashion a missile from a chicken hatchery, a goat, a bunch of coriander and a fishing rod stuck together with jam - Channel 4 News International Editor Lindsey Hilsum on Israel's aid blockade of the Gaza strip.
I say this because Israel does not allow these items across its Kerem Shalom border post into the Gaza Strip, in the interests of protecting its citizens from attack by Hamas. The ostensible aim of the blockade - brought into focus by this week’s interception of aid ships - is to undermine the Hamas government and stop it from firing rockets into Israel, but nothing I saw in Gaza over the past few days suggested it was working.
For a start, you can get pretty much everything, if you have the money to buy. Last Thursday evening I joined the pre-weekend throng on the main street, where the call to prayer mingled with the honk of car horns from smart new vehicles smuggled in from Egypt. I watched a young woman, eyes glittering above her black face-veil, try on kitten-heel boots. Young men loitered in front of the computer store. A half-naked mannequin sported a sun-dress.
All this comes through the warren of smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt at Rafah, a new and distorting economic system for the enclave of 1.5 million people.
Whereas imports from Israel are checked for weapons, the World Bank says 80% of goods coming in from Egypt are not inspected, so it’s hard to see how this makes Israel safer. In the tunnel I visited, they were winching out floor tiles in a long, thin plastic canoe-like container which they call ‘the train’. The tunnel owner, who didn’t want to give me his full name, told me business was bad and he scarcely made a cent, but that was scarcely credible. Most people say tunnel owners are the only ones getting rich.
I met Hosni Abu Ghali at his sewing workship, where in better times he had employed 25 workers to stitch baby clothes for export to Israel. Israeli business partners sent in fabric, which he made into babygros and shawls. Now bobbins of white and orange thread lie scattered amongst the off cuts and idle sewing machines. Three years ago, when Hamas won the elections in Gaza, Israel banned the import of textiles into Gaza, and stopped accepting exports. The economy collapsed, and with it Hosni’s business.
As he watches men he once regarded as lazy or criminal make money while he depends on food hand-outs, he sounds bitter.
“Before the seige, when there were proper jobs, you might find these people unemployed and without a single shekel,” he told me. “At that time, no-one would respect such a man because he didn’t want to work. But now, he might be seen as an important businessman in Gaza, and everybody has to respect him because he has money.”
It’s not clear whether the disastrous state of Gaza’s economy has strengthened or weakened Hamas. On the one hand, the new black market economy is a source of taxes and patronage, and Gazans blame Israel for their suffering. On the other, some Gazans I met believe Hamas has brought more trouble on their heads and would not vote for them again. I was in Gaza for the 2006 elections, and well remember that people chose Hamas because they saw it as less corrupt than its rival Fatah – not everyone believes that is still the case.
Israel puts out statistics to prove it allows humanitarian goods into Gaza, but aid workers I met say the real issue is creating, or recreating, a viable economy so young people can get work and Gazans are less dependent on aid. That can’t happen until the blockade is lifted.
What about Israel’s security? Occasional rockets are still fired from Gaza into Israel, mercifully with few casualties. In the end, someone will have to negotiate with someone else. Like them or not, Hamas is a reality which isn’t going to fade away, however many tons of goods you refuse to allow over the border.
