GAZA: Gazans flock to flea market as economic woes intensify

When Um Muhammad's husband still worked as a labourer in Israel, she could afford to buy new clothes for herself and her family. Now that Israel has prevented her husband and other Gaza residents from entering Israel, the family has very little income. She is forced to look for clothing and household goods in the main flea market of the Gaza Strip, where unemployment has reached a startling 50 percent. "We shop here because of our bad economic situation. We buy used (clothes) instead of new ones. (Journalist asks how many children she has) I have two children. The situation is so bad, everyone is unemployed," Um Muhammad said as she searched through heaps of children's clothing laid out on the ground in the Gaza flea market. When Hamas came to power in March after defeating President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah in an election in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Western nations cut off direct financial aid to the Palestinian Authority and Israel withheld tax receipts. The Palestinians, suffering deepening economic hardship as a result, were told the sanctions would be lifted only after Hamas recognised Israel, renounced violence and accepted existing interim peace accords. Hamas has refused, and though one of its top leaders, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, has said the group would make do with a Palestinian state on the lands occupied in 1967, he has never given any indication that it would accept Israel. About 165,000 government employees in the Palestinian territories have not received full wages for ten months. Stall owners in the flee market say many Gazans simply no longer have cash to buy food and basic goods. "Because of this situation, the client cannot come to the shop, you have to go to him, to the central market. There isn't much selling going on, and the shoppers are not well off, there isn't much money, they are not buying, there isn't any work, and this affects trade," said flea market stall owner Refat Ghareeb. In November, the head of the Palestine Monetary Authority estimated that GDP had declined by between 15 and 18 percent in the first nine months of 2006. A separate report issued in November by the The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) that helps Palestinian refugees said Western sanctions on Gaza and the West Bank caused an average 12 percent reduction in per capita consumption and a 64 percent increase in the number of Palestinians living in "deep poverty." The Israeli restrictions placed on the movement of people and goods to and from the Palestinian territories have been especially severe in Gaza, and intensified after the September 2000 Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation. Gazans cannot travel abroad without Israeli permission, which is usually withheld, and cannot buy or sell goods freely. Despite Israel's pull out from the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005, Israel still controls Gaza's territorial waters and airspace, and regularly closes the Rafah crossing between the Strip and Egypt, the only gateway to the outside world from the Palestinian territories without going through Israel. The combination of economic siege and restrictions on movement has had a crippling effect on the Palestinian economy. "I used to have a shoe shop on Beach Street, I used to do good business. I had a shop in one of the best streets in Khan Younis which is Beach Street. Now, because of the situation which been deteriorating since the beginning of this Intifada (Palestinian September 2000 uprising against Israeli occupation), I have a tea and coffee-making stall," said flea market stall owner Samir Abu Hatab. Violence also contributes to Gaza's economic woes. Israel has launched numerous military attacks against the Gaza Strip since its withdrawal from the Strip. Internal Palestinian violence also saw security beginning to fall apart in Gaza shortly before the January 2006 Palestinian election and deteriorated sharply after Hamas's defeat of the long-dominant Fatah faction turned their power struggle even more bitter. Many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip now fear Gaza will become a land the world forgot, a no-go zone for aid workers who help them deal with economic despair. UNRWA, the largest international aid organisation to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, has relocated 32 international employees to Jerusalem and Jordan in the past 18 months because of Israeli military operations in Gaza and internal Palestinian violence. More than half of Gaza's 1.4 million inhabitants receive aid from UNRWA. The agency operates a network of food supply centres in refugee camps and towns and runs nearly 200 schools and health clinics in the territory.

ITN Source | January 24, 2007

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