UN-Truth

An article reported from Gaza by the Christian Science Monitor on 16 June informs us that:

“…Severe fuel shortage has forced motorists to buy soybean oil to replace the diesel fuel and gasoline that Israel now provides to Gaza at a severely diminished quantity. Cooking oil sells for around $8 per gallon while gasoline on the black market costs $50 per gallon. Obtaining gasoline and diesel legally requires weeks of waiting for fuel rationed by Hamas to between 10 and 50 liters per car. Even more than fuel, smugglers in the southern city of Rafah say the highest product in demand these days is women’s underwear. Cigarettes are also a popular item and are perhaps the only good in Gaza that is cheaper now than before since they are sold without a tobacco tax.
…
Mornings at the Sufa crossing i– Even from the first truck in line, the drivers lined up here facing the Israeli border can only see a swirl of dust and some faint movement within. But their lives, and the lives of nearly every one of the 1.4 million people who live in Gaza, depend on those distant forms that cannot be approached without significant risk to life and limb from the Israeli soldiers guarding them. Six days per week, from around 9 a.m. until 3 p.m., around 60 Israeli trucks under heavy guard dump basic supplies at Sufa – wheat, rice, produce, dairy products, and medicines – that just barely sustain Gaza. Numerous attacks by Hamas and other militant factions have made the Israelis edgy, so the Palestinian truck drivers must wait to collect the goods, all of which but the dairy products sit baking for hours under the hot Mediterranean sun, until all the Israelis have safely returned to their side of the border. Without those supplies, what meager existence the people of Gaza manage to eke out at the moment would vanish”.

The full text of this CSM story from Gaza ten days ago can be read here .

Filed under: Egypt, Gaza, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians, Sanctions