Israel imported its first fruit and vegetables from the Gaza Strip in almost eight years on Thursday, in a partial easing of an economic blockade maintained since the Islamist group Hamas seized control of the Palestinian territory.AP adds:
Twenty-seven tonnes of tomatoes and five tonnes of eggplants were trucked across the border under an Israeli plan to bring in around 1,200 tonnes of produce a month. The Palestinians welcomed the move, though the scale fell short of the some 3,300 tonnes they said they had previously exported to Israel monthly.
Israel has faced international calls to ease the blockade since a war with Hamas last year, the second in six years, that caused heavy devastation in Gaza and left more than 100,000 of its 1.8 million people homeless.
It had already begun to allow vegetables from Gaza as well as Palestinian merchants to transit across Israel to the occupied West Bank, and to allow Gaza's farmers to bring tractors in via Israel.
The Gaza vegetable exports will help devout Jews observe a farming sabbatical prescribed by the Bible that falls once every seven years.So Gazans should be happy, right?
Ha!
Palestinian Arabic newspaper Safa describes how this is awful news for Gazans.Produce sellers in Gaza, knowing that Israel pays more for the products than they do (2.5 shekels vs. 1.5 shekels per kilo of tomatoes) then they won't be able to get as much produce to sell, and it could drive up prices.
For their part, the Gaza minitry of agriculture says that they would block exports if the local prices increase too much - and they say they have already blocked exports to the West Bank of some products that affected the local economy.
Meanwhile, Israel is now allowing masonry mortar into Gaza for the first time since Hamas took over. I'm sure that someone will find an anti-Israel angle to that as well.