Seven tons of strawberries were shipped via the Kerem Shalom crossing.
Gaza farmers accused Israel of delaying the shipment to protect their own sales of strawberries to the West Bank. Even so, an official from the Ministry of Agriculture in Gaza said that he expected between 300 and 400 tons of strawberries to be exported to the West bank this season, besides the tons that are exported to Europe.
At the same time, the Undersecretary of the Hamas Ministry of Agriculture Mohammed Jadallah said that the Gaza Strip had exported almost 13,000 tons of vegetables during the year 2015 to the West Bank, Israel and abroad.
Besides strawberries, Gaza farmers export tons of a cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, sweet peppers and zucchini.
Some Arab media have been claiming that Israel has been cutting cooking gas supplies in the middle of the winter to Gaza for the past month, gas which Gazans use to heat their homes.
Looking at the COGAT statistics for the past six weeks, there has been no reduction in cooking gas except for one week. Heating fuel imports have gone up in recent weeks.
A major reason for the shortage of cooking gas is because many Gazan taxi drivers have converted their cars to use that as fuel, so less gas is available for cooking.
Meanwhile, Israel is going to pump cooking gas into Gaza on Friday, when the Kerem Shalom crossing is normally closed, to help out Gazans.
