Twenty-one days after the June 20, 2010 cabinet decision, Israel allowed Gaza merchants to import raw materials for industry. This followed three years of prohibiting the entrance of raw materials to Gaza, as part of a declared policy of “economic warfare“. Last week fabrics, empty cans, thread and industrial cocoa were brought in.

Although Israel states that the number of trucks carrying goods into the Gaza Strip has risen by 70% since the cabinet decision, when seen in context, that number still only accounts for 34% of the needs of the residents of Gaza and its economy (in 2005 the number of trucks entering Gaza was 10,400 per month).

Furthermore, when you zoom out from the numbers and percentages, it turns out that even though Israel allowed the Palestinian Coordination Committee (the body in charge of coordinating and transferring requests from private sector merchants to the Israeli side, not including the agricultural sector) to include raw materials in its daily lists, there is still a long way to go until those materials actually reach Gaza. Since an Israeli permit is subject to the capacity constraints of the crossings, and since Israel has permitted only one of the crossings (Kerem Shalom) to be fully operational, most requests by merchants for raw materials are not even submitted. Last week, for example, the average number of trucks crossing per day, including via the conveyer belt at the Karni crossing, was 180, including 50 trucks of humanitarian supplies and inputs for the agricultural sector. Under these circumstances, the Palestinian Coordination Committee has its hands full prioritizing the items and trying to find a place in the daily quotas for the various industries in Gaza requesting goods. The Committee estimates that to meet the current applications for raw materials it will be necessary to allow 500 trucks through per day.

Kerem Shalom crossing (source: USAID)

Under these circumstances it will take months until the first orders of basic raw materials for industry will be able to enter Gaza and since Israel continues to insist on banning export, it is not clear how it intends to implement its promise “to expand economic activity” in the Gaza Strip, which depends on the passage of people and goods in both directions.

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While we wait for Gaza’s economy to bounce back and in better news … tomorrow, over 6,000 kids in Gaza will attempt to break the world record for the number of basketballs bounced simultaneously as part of UNRWA’s “Great Gaza Global Bounce”. To see a short clip about the attempt, click below.

On Tuesday, May 25, 2010, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) released its latest update, claiming to be actively contributing to the humanitarian needs and even economic development of the Gaza Strip. Contrast the MFA report with UN agency OCHA’s critical report on limitations to access in the Palestinian territory released on May 27, 2010.

We wrote last week about the seeming paradox between a policy whose stated goals are to reduce civilians to the minimum “essential for survival” (but not to fall below it) in order to achieve political gains, while at the same time boasting of one’s humanitarianism.

This week, together with Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel), an Israeli human rights group that protects the right to health, we provide further details.

Humanitarian aid only, and even that just barely trickles through

• Food and hygiene products continue to account for 76% of the goods allowed in to Gaza, although entrance is routinely denied for many food items including chocolate and vinegar. Food items that could be used as inputs for local food production – such as margarine in large buckets or glucose – are banned. Civil society institutions, critical infrastructure, factories, schools, and even homes can’t function on flour, sugar, and sponges alone.

• Numbers show that indeed many tons of aid is going into the Strip, destined especially for the 80% of Gaza residents now completely dependent on charity because of the collapse of the economy. Export for commercial purposes, which was allowed on exceptional basis for the strawberry and flower markets, was minimal: 259 trucks in three years were allowed to leave Gaza, which is less than what Gaza residents were exporting in four days prior to June 2001.

• The Foreign Ministry claims that Israel facilitates “all cases of medical treatments from Gaza unless the patient is a known perpetrator of terror”. Last year, over 2,300 entry permits for medical treatment were either rejected or delayed by Israeli officials. These rejections included many individuals who, according to Israel, “only” wish to improve their “quality of life” – by trying to avoid loss of vision or limbs. In these cases, Israel says it need not allow entrance. It also includes patients denied entry where no security allegation was made, but rather the military claimed there was concern that they would remain in the West Bank after treatment, contrary to Israel’s political goal of separating Gaza from the West Bank.

• During the first two months of 2010, PHR-Israel re-submitted the requests of 23 individuals who were initially rejected for security reasons. Thanks to expert opinions from senior Israeli physicians attached to each request, 10 out of the 23 cases were overturned. This raises serious questions about the balancing act that Israel claims it performs between each patient’s medical needs and his or her perceived threat to State security. It also raises questions about the State’s definition of “security risk”.

• Israel claims that Hamas is often an obstacle to granting permits for medical care. However, Hamas has little to do with the permit process. The process was actually created during the Oslo Peace Process, and both the Palestinian Authority and Israel have a role to play. Patients are required to receive an authorized referral from practicing physicians in Gaza, apply for financial coverage from the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, submit papers to a Palestinian Civil Affairs Committee in Gaza subject to the authority of the PA in Ramallah, which then forwards the request to the Israeli Army at Erez Crossing. This process takes an average of 6 weeks and is extremely taxing on Gaza’s sick and injured as well as their families.

• While Israel has the right to conduct security checks, Israel often exploits a patient’s vulnerable state by preconditioning entry for medical treatment on participation in a Shin Bet interrogation – in violation of international law. In several cases, the Shin Bet has summoned patients to the Erez Crossing for security investigations, and then tried to coerce them into collaborating with the Shin Bet by conditioning an exit permit on their collection and provision of information to the Shin Bet. In a number of instances, the Shin Bet went as far as using the permit application process as a way to “lure” Palestinians to the Erez checkpoint in order to arrest them: upon arrival at the checkpoint, they have been immediately arrested and imprisoned in Israeli jails.

Illustration: Moran Barak, source: PHR-Israel

• The MFA reports that coordination with international parties on entrance for building supplies takes place regularly. OCHA, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that it took nine months of negotiations to get approval for entrance of items to finish construction on some 151 housing facilities that were already 85% complete on the eve of the closure in June 2007. This is a hard-fought-for drop in the bucket compared with the 86,000 housing units that are needed in Gaza.

• Likewise, UNRWA reports that donor funds to the tune of $109 million USD are frozen because restrictions on movement of building materials prevent breaking ground on 24 constructions and infrastructure projects. If it took nine months to negotiate the start of each of the 24 projects, we’d be looking at 18 years of negotiations.

• We’ve written before about Israel’s refusal to allow books, stationery, toys, and other educational materials for 248,000 students in Gaza, although it makes an exception for other students studying in UNRWA schools. But UNRWA alone, whose schools generally operate three shifts to deal with overcrowding, needs to build 100 schools to meet demand, and Israel refuses to allow the building materials to enter. Even if Israel were to agree to allow in the building materials and if it takes nine months to negotiate the construction of each school, UNRWA would have its schools after about 75 years, about the time that today’s children would be in their 80s.

We are encouraged that the MFA report seems to embrace the need to facilitate humanitarian aid, while encouraging the development of a healthy economy in Gaza. If Israel is truly interested in implementing such a policy, it would be advised to open Gaza’s crossings for movement of goods and people, subject only to concrete security considerations and not political maneuvering.

Since Israel sent a search and rescue team and doctors to help earthquake-devastated Haiti, op-eds and articles have praised Israel’s important provision of relief and also attempted to hold up a mirror to the country, showing closure-devastated Gaza just over our shoulder. Some in Israel asked, how is it that aid is rushed half a world away when children are living in half-destroyed homes just an hour’s drive from Tel Aviv? Others argued that Israel’s positive actions in Haiti should stand alone, even if the Israeli government over-publicized the efforts (in his blog this week, Ami Kaufman adds English subtitles to a popular Israeli satire spoofing the over-focus on Israeli rescue efforts in Haiti – worth watching!). Israel’s Foreign Ministry justifiably expresses pride in Israel’s humanitarian actions in Haiti, but it also boasts, for example, in the MFA round-up for 2009 that aid to the Gaza Strip increased by 900% in 2009. Is that really something to be proud of?

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.

This week the Israeli Foreign Ministry boasted that Israel has allowed “a large quantity of educational tools such as notebooks, backpacks, writing tools, and textbooks” into the Gaza Strip in the last month. The Foreign Ministry wrote that: “Through COGAT and the Gaza DCL, Israel makes great efforts to provide for the humanitarian needs of the Gaza Strip, and for this reason the recent transfer was facilitated at the request of the organization [UNRWA].”

“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.