If they haven’t bread, let them eat gravel

Posted on November 18, 2010

The eve of Eid al-Adha celebrated this week brought news of a shortage of flour in the Gaza Strip. For the past two weeks, traders and flour mill owners have warned of shortages of wheat in the Strip, claiming that the mills have been providing about half of their production capacity… Continue reading →

Posted in Infrastructure, Movement of goods into Gaza | 3 Comments

Who Controls the Palestinian Population Registry?

Posted on November 11, 2010

When the Palestinian Supreme Court in Ramallah issued a new ruling on 22.10.2010, commentators were quick to declare a breakthrough for the 35,000 Palestinian residents who live in the West Bank but whose registered addresses are in Gaza and who therefore live under the threat of deportation. The ruling ordered the Palestinian Interior Ministry to carry out all the necessary procedures to change these residents’ addresses from the Gaza Strip to the… Continue reading →

Posted in Adress updates | 1 Comment

The race for freedom of movement

Posted on October 27, 2010

Tomorrow, I will run a 160 km (100 mile) “ultra-marathon”, the first 100 mile race to be held in Israel. For the people I meet through my work at Gisha, fulfilling the desire for freedom is also not an easy task. For them, the obstacles are not the limits of oxygen delivery or lactic acid threshold, but rather the obstacles stemming from our reality in this region of the world – a reality of restrictions on the ability to travel, with passage between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank almost completely blocked. Continue reading →

Posted in Students from Gaza to the West Bank | Leave a comment

The ban on student travel between Gaza and the West Bank: Fatma Sharif's story

Posted on October 18, 2010

As the new academic year begins, meet Ms. Sharif, a lawyer from the Gaza Strip who wanted to reach her studies in democracy and human rights in the West Bank but was unable to do so. Continue reading →

Posted in General | 1 Comment

Facts Behind MFA Report on "Easing" of Gaza Closure

Posted on September 21, 2010

In advance of today’s meeting of the Ad-hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC) for assistance to the Palestinians, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) released a report detailing steps taken to improve Gaza’s economy pursuant to a June 20, 2010 Israeli Cabinet decision to “ease” the closure. The following is a summary of the main points of the MFA report and data which places the information in context. Continue reading →

Posted in General | 3 Comments

Children of the gravel

Posted on September 16, 2010

On Saturday, May 22, 2010, Hasan, 17, was shot in the leg in the now-defunct Erez industrial area in the northern Gaza Strip: “I was collecting gravel with the other workers, when one of the Israeli soldiers in the watchtower fired a shot which hit me in the right leg. I immediately fell to the ground in great pain. Everyone started running away, except for one youngster who I didn’t know, who came and tried to help me, but he couldn’t lift me”. In the meantime, the soldiers kept firing… Continue reading →

Posted in Infrastructure | Leave a comment

How the Gaza export ban impacts the furniture company of Tahseen Al-Isi

Posted on September 2, 2010

This week we will try again to understand what the possibilities are for industry in Gaza when the import of consumer goods, such as furniture, is permitted, when raw materials for industry have been cleared for entrance after many months, and while the ban on export remains firmly in place. This time we spoke with Tahseen al-Isi, director of the… Continue reading →

Posted in Movement of goods out of Gaza | Leave a comment

For Gaza Tailors, Market is Flooded, External Markets Are Banned

Posted on August 26, 2010

“Not only did the ‘easements’ Israel declared not help us, they have even harmed us. Exports are still banned, and that is a problem because the Gaza market is very small, and a large amount of ready made clothes have been brought in from Israel and China. The Gaza market was flooded with products, there is a lot of supply and less demand, and because of the stiff competition, we are forced to lower prices. As long as there is no export, it is hard for workers in the clothing and textile sector to profit and produce. After three years of closure, we lost the contacts we had developed with clients from Israel, and they went elsewhere… Continue reading →

Posted in Movement of goods out of Gaza | 2 Comments

Women breaking barriers

Posted on August 19, 2010

Agence France Presse (AFP) news agency recently published a report about two sisters from the Gaza Strip, aged 13 and 16, who went to work in the fishing industry to support their family following their father’s illness. The report drew much interest and was translated and published on several Arabic language websites. True, it is out of the ordinary for two girls in a conservative society to find themselves in a field, or sea, as it were, usually reserved for men, but considering the difficult situation in Gaza– 39.3% unemployment in the second quarter of 2010, with the number of people living in abject poverty rising in the last two years from 100,000 to 300,000 according to the UN Office… Continue reading →

Posted in econmic development | 1 Comment

Netanyahu Testimony on Gaza Flotilla: PR over Human Rights and Security

Posted on August 12, 2010

As the Israeli daily Haaretz pointed out in a scathing editorial, Netanyahu readily acknowledged that Israel’s decisions on what to allow or prohibit into Gaza were based not on concern for the welfare of the population in Gaza but rather about Israel’s image in the international media: “Even though there was not a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, I decided to gradually ease the limitations and the movement of goods through the land crossings. I did so because… Continue reading →

Posted in General | 1 Comment