GAZA: Palestinian merchants in Gaza live hand-to-market

Palestinian merchants say Israel's stop-gap method for trucking merchandise into Gaza at Sufa Crossing often destroys goods and harms business. Reduced to near poverty by a blockade on the Gaza Strip, Palestinian merchants in the Hamas-ruled enclave complain that Israel's stop-gap method for allowing in their merchandise often adds insult to injury. Since Hamas took over in June internal fighting, Israel has shut the main commercial crossing on the Gaza border, Karni, citing security concerns. That leaves the Sufa crossing, where, in the absence of formal Israeli-Palestinian co-ordination, vendors from the Jewish state have simply been dumping cargo on the frontier. It makes for a daily spectacle of Gazan merchants scrabbling about in the sand outside Sufa to salvage food, vegetables and other perishable products often bruised by their rough passage and handling. "Our merchandise falls from trucks and it's destroyed. Forklift truck drivers don't drive as they should. If the some of the cargo on the truck falls out, they don't care, they leave it (on the ground) and go to pick up the next load, and if that too falls, they won't stop and will go for the next load. What's important for them is to unload the truck and leave," said Hussein Abu Meriam, a Palestinian co-ordinator at Sufa crossing. Israel denies deliberately putting the cargo at risk, saying it is trying to head off economic crisis in Gaza while shunning Hamas, whose charter calls for the Jewish state's destruction. The Israeli District Coordination Office which oversees deliveries to Gaza said they deliver thousands of crates into Gaza every day, and there is a chance that some might break during the process. The Israeli office said that, at Sufa, the goods are offloaded during the morning hours, and at 3 p.m. all trucks return to Israel. The gates are then closed and Palestinian merchants allowed in to pick up the cargo and take it to market. "I am not willing, after seeing what happens to the yoghurt, to buy this yoghurt from the market. Yoghurt and cheeses are spilled. Fruits too. There are even sugar and flour sacks that are torn and merchants have to collect it from the ground," said Abu Mansour, one of the Palestinians who own land in the area where the good are dropped off. The Israeli district Coordination Office said that, at another crossing, Kerem Shalom, goods are transferred directly from Israeli to the Palestinian trucks, the Israeli DCO spokesman Shadi Yassin told Reuters. But Palestinians note that Kerem Shalom is primarily used to bring in humanitarian aid to Gaza's 1.5 million residents. Gaza is a restricted area and the Israeli army decides where and how the deliveries, pre-paid for by Palestinian traders, are delivered. Gazans say the unreliable deliveries have hurt business -- and morale. "Since they opened the crossing, the attitude of the Israelis towards us has not been good. And the forklift drivers, they dump the goods and that's it, no matter how it is done. They (Israelis) are dealing with us like animals. It is like: 'here is your food, eat it, sell it, do whatever you want with it,'" said Baker Abu Muammar, another Gaza Strip resident who owns land in the area. Merchants said they can't get their products to the markets without first paying 2,000 shekels (465 U.S. dollars) in fees to the Hamas-led administration in the Gaza Strip, despite a decree by President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah to exempt individuals and companies from paying taxes in the territory.

ITN Source | August 20, 2007

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