Santa is back. Photo: stock.xchg

Last Monday we put up a post about the narrowed criteria for allowing Christians to travel out of the Gaza Strip over Christmas this year, which the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) called “easings”.

Adv. Nomi Heger, director of Gisha’s Legal Department, wrote a letter to the Ministry of Defense raising questions about the narrowing of criteria. We can’t tell whether the letter had its intended effect or whether it was our short post on the subject, or perhaps the security establishment’s goodwill, but it appears that COGAT has retreated. The age criterion, which was set this year at allowing travel for those over 46 and under 16, was restored to last year’s age range of over 35 and under 16.

COGAT didn’t bother to post a separate update notifying about its decision to change the criteria but instead chose to quietly alter the original notice posted on its website, the one that reported the “easings” in the first place. It’s unclear how the word “easings” can be used to describe the act of leaving the situation exactly as it was previously. But then again, COGAT is good at coming up with creative uses for this and other words .

Luckily, Google kept a cached version of the original notice, before COGAT decided to change it. Below are images of the screens side by side. Enjoy and happy holidays.

Before and after. Screenshot from COGAT site

A closer look at the goodwill gesture suggests that the Grinch – and not just Santa Claus – has been at work. Photo: stock.xchg

Christmas cheer came a bit early for Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Gaza with the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories’ (COGAT) announcement of goodwill gestures for Christians during the holiday season. It would appear that Santa has decided that 500 Palestinian Christians from Gaza who are under the age of 16 and over the age of 46 have been nice this year and so deserve a chance to visit family in Israel and the West Bank and participate in religious festivities at holy sites outside the Strip.

It’s a welcome gesture and certainly important that the principles of freedom of movement and freedom of religious worship, as well as goodwill, find expression in COGAT’s actions.

But a closer look at the goodwill gesture suggests that the Grinch – and not just Santa Claus – has been at work. In this year’s stocking for Gaza’s Christians is a rollback of their ability to access holy sites on the holidays, relative to past years: Israel has raised the age of those banned from traveling to 46 years old, rather than 35 years old, and has set a quota of just 500 people being allowed to travel, even though about 600 Christians traveled last year.

Whether they have been naughty or nice, at least two-thirds of Gaza’s approximately 1,500 Christians, including all those between the ages of 16-46 who are excluded from the gesture, won’t be able to celebrate the holiday with their family members who meet the criteria and do squeeze into the quota. That means a family of six, with mom and dad over the ages of 46 but with children aged 20, 16, 14, and 7 will either have to forfeit the chance to travel or the option of spending Christmas together.

Last year at Christmas, and even this past Easter, the criteria stipulated that those over 35 years of age could receive permits. It’s not clear why this Christmas only those over 46 can travel. Israel’s policy is even more restrictive for Muslims in Gaza: Muslims of any age can’t travel to holy sites, a policy approved in the courts earlier this year, so I guess we have to be grateful for small miracles. In any case, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all!

Update, 12.22.11: It appears the COGAT has decided to change the criteria again. If you wish to read about the change and the way it was done click here.

Flowers and Vegetables. Munther Budi Farm , Gaza , Biet Lahia

Three days ago two truckloads of strawberries exited Gaza and passed through Israel on their way to Europe. They were the first truckloads of export allowed out of the Strip in over six months, part of a program funded by the Dutch government to bring Gaza produce to European markets.

To mark the occasion, we recall an animated clip about the volume of goods entering the Gaza Strip released by the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) in June of this year.The numbers seem impressive – every day about 260 trucks enter Gaza from Israel, carrying about 6,000 tons of goods. According to the clip, Israel can transfer double that volume into the Gaza Strip, about 400 trucks per day, carrying 12,000 tons of goods, however “demand is ultimately determined by the Palestinians”.In other words, what closure?

As usual, our main dispute is not with the figures released by COGAT,we just wish to fill in the blanks and give a more complete picture of the situation. For example, alongside the relaxation in restrictions on entrance of goods to Gaza since mid-2010, the ban on sale of goods out of Gaza has remained in place. The two truckloads of strawberries that left in Sunday come on the heels of more than six months during which no product of any kind left the Strip. So can we call it an end to the restrictions on export? Doesn’t look like it. Are the restrictions for security reasons? You make the call.

So is there export? Very little and with great difficulty

Produce from Gaza enters Israel, where it is transferred to the Ashdod seaport or Ben Gurion airport for travel on to Europe. Marketing Palestinian produce all the way in Europe is naturally more costly, so much so that it’s simply not profitable. In other words, the export isn’t a product of a functioning economy, more like the outcome of a humanitarian aid project.

Sale of goods to the West Bank or Israel from Gaza has been strictly prohibited since June of 2007, despite the fact that the produce that is exported to Europe enters Israel and undergoes full security screening en route to the port and airport. Before Israel tightened the closure in 2007, some 85% of the goods leaving Gaza were destined for Israel and the West Bank.

“Over the past year”, COGAT’s website states, “Palestinian exporters brought more than 399 tons of strawberries, 10 million carnations, 6.5 tons of cherry tomatoes, and 6 tons of yellow, red, and green bell pepper to European markets”. Sounds great, right? This is the entire quantity of export from Gaza for a whole year. Gaza’s strawberry export potential is some 2,300 tons per year. In 2005, 904 tons of cherry tomatoes were exported from Gaza, 140 times the amount planned for the upcoming season.

Let the goods go

Let’s get back to COGAT’s animated video clip. It says that Israel doesn’t transfer more goods into the Strip because Palestinians aren’t asking for more. This is partially true. Israel doesn’t “transfer” goods to Palestinians. It only allows goods to be bought by Palestinians. Palestinians are not demanding more goods in part because of continued restrictions on the entrance of some raw materials (including construction materials) and in part because purchasing power is weak in the Strip. And purchasing power will remain weak as long as Israel continues to severely restrict export.

In the second quarter of 2011, unemployment in the Gaza Strip stood at 28%. Unemployment is particularly high in the 20 – 24 age bracket, where it reached 42% in the first half of 2011. Without a vibrant and profitable manufacturing sector – industrial and agricultural – it is hard to see how the situation might improve.

What does Israel have to gain by continuing to paralyze the private sector in the Gaza Strip? According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the answer is clear – nothing. This is what Netanyahu said in February:  “… [S]tability is important at all times, but it’s especially important now and the first set of steps that we’re taking are to continue the policy we’ve advanced to enable economic growth in the Palestinian areas…. it’s contributed to a better life for the Palestinians and I think it’s contributing to peace and security in the long term”.Well spoken indeed, but it is time to put words into action.

Stay tuned, in the next post we share three export stories: dangerous potatoes, burning furniture, and the runaway cherry tomatoes…

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On average, 2,500 trucks of goods enter the Gaza Strip each month. This is roughly 25% of the amount that entered prior to the June 2007 closure of the Strip (10,400/month). The items permitted entrance are limited to basic goods “necessary for the survival of the population” (to quote a recent letter Gisha received from the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT)). Items like flour, grain, and sugar are allowed. Every month new items appear among those allowed in and others items are mysteriously rejected: coffee this month yes, but cardamom to flavor it, no. Anise yes, and black pepper too, but vinegar no. Significantly, there is a total ban on raw materials that would permit Gaza residents to engage in production and commerce, allowing for economic independence. Clarity regarding the policy requires no less than a court order.

Israel does not provide the aid transferred to Gaza. In fact it earns on each truck that passes and each ton of aid bought or shipped, stored, and transferred through its territory. After closing all of Gaza’s other crossings, including the airspace, territorial waters, and indirectly – Rafah Crossing – Israel partially opens its side of the gates to Gaza to allow others to bring in aid and other items. More often than not, Israel blocks the movement of goods in to and out of Gaza and of course the movement of people who in most parts of the world travel into and out of their countries for simple, every day things like work and school and weddings.

These restrictions – and the policy underlying them, limiting Gaza residents to a “minimal” existence – are what have helped make Gaza residents dependent on international aid, whose provision Israel burdens.

“Great efforts” indicate the existence of great obstacles, and the obstacles are indeed great. But ironically, these are obstacles that Israel itself created when it decided that only goods required for maintaining the “humanitarian minimum” would be allowed into the Gaza Strip. And so the recent transfer of educational materials was “facilitated” by Israel’s deviation from its own sweeping policy – of obstruction.

Furthermore, in addition to the fact that the school year began in the Gaza Strip more than 2.5 months ago, the basic goods that Israel has now allowed in are destined only for schools operated by UNRWA, which comprise just one-third of all schools in the Strip – 221 out of 640 schools.

For 240,199 other school students – more than half the student population – who study at government and private schools, the Israeli ban on the import of paper and other basic educational materials remains firmly in place, just as it has been for the past 29 months.