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Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Yet more on Gaza's "humanitarian crisis"

WAFA, the official PA "news" agency, says:
Agriculture Ministry declared Wednesday that the efforts, were exerted to export the strawberry and flowers of Gaza Strip to Arab and European countries, succeeded despite the Israeli siege imposed.

Succeeded "despite" the siege?
The ministry said in its statement that “such a success in exporting flowers and strawberry came as a result of Premier Salam Fayyad and Agriculture Minister Mahmoud al-Habbash’s efforts with their Israeli counterparts in Israel and Rome in the 34 Conference of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome”.
So even though Israel allowed the exports, the "moderate" PA "news" agency still makes it sound like Israel was dead-set against it and only the heroic efforts of Fatah managed to help the Gaza farmers.

And where was Hamas in all this?
Ma'an (Arabic) fills in the missing pieces:

According to the Israeli official, Israel prevented the rest of the trucks from crossing after a Palestinian mortar shelling the crossing during the export process.
So Israel arranged for Gaza farmers to export berries and flowers, and Gaza terrorists shot mortars at the crossing to stop them.

Now, whose fault is the Gaza mess again?