Smuggling from Egypt halted, Gazans turn to Israel

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Amid the ongoing turmoil whipping across Egypt, the plight of Gazans, 1.7 million residents of the 141-square-mile strip wedged between Israel and Egypt, has slipped from public consciousness.
 
But that turmoil has put Gazans in a new and uncertain predicament.
 
Since the July 3 ouster of Egypt's president, Mohammed Morsi, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, the governing Egyptian military has embarked on a crackdown against all Islamic political forces — and that has meant cutting off smuggled trade from Egypt into Gaza, where the Islamist Hamas rules.
 
The result: For the first time in years, almost every item imported into Gaza now arrives from Israel — and at a higher price.
 
For years, Gazans have relied on a maze of smuggling tunnels, many paved and wide enough to allow a truck through, for the importation of Egyptian merchandise, cheaper than products imported from Israel and not subject to the restrictions Israel places on "dual-use goods" – products like fertilizer that can be used for innocent purposes but also as an explosive.
 
Gaza is formally part of the Palestinian Authority, but since 2007, when the extremist Islamic movement Hamas took power from Fatah, the party that runs the Palestinian government in Ramallah, it has been politically marooned. Efforts to create a unity government between the two factions have failed.
 
Israel has struggled with waves of terror emanating from Gaza, including thousands of rockets and missiles.
 
Israel responded most forcefully to the rocket attacks last November, when it initiated an eight-day military operation called Pillar of Defense.
 
Ezekiel Lein, head of the research and analysis unit at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, says that while there has been no official change in Israel's policy vis-a-vis Gaza, "this July saw a 30% increase in the importation of goods compared with June. The change is a direct consequence of the decrease in material brought through the tunnels. More gasoline came into Gaza from Israel in July than in the prior six months."
 
There are no commercial or diplomatic ties between Israel and the Hamas ruling authority. The transfer of Israeli goods into Gaza is overseen by a unit of the Israeli army, the Coordination Liaison Administration.
 
More than ever, Gaza is now in the grips of economic and social instability. Mamoun Khozendar, a Gazan contractor and businessman, says that while his colleagues normally plan their business activities a year in advance, "here I can't even make a schedule for the next two hours!"
 
The quality of Israeli goods is higher than that of Egyptian goods, he says, but prices have risen accordingly. While part of the added expense is offset by the lack of levies exacted by Hamas for goods that were imported via the tunnels, prices of basic goods have increased as much as 200%.
 
Real estate, on the other hand, has crashed. "No one is selling and no one is buying," Khozendar laments. People are hesitant, they don't know what's going on in the region around them, they're afraid of the situation. The cycle has just stopped."
 
Tarnopolsky is a correspondent for Global Post in Jerusalem
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