EGYPTIAN AUTHORITIES ALLOW ONLY 50 PALESTINIANS TO TRAVEL VIA RAFAH TERMINAL

Cairo, 19 Ramadan 1434/27 July 2013 (MINA) – The Egyptian authorities decided to open the Rafah border terminal with the Gaza Strip only for 50 persons daily.

A Palestinian security source said on Wednesday that negotiations with the Egyptian authorities resulted in allowing only 50 Palestinians to leave the Strip on daily basis via the Rafah border terminal, Palestinian Information Center reported as monitored by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).

He said that those 50 should have entry visas to a third country and airplane tickets in order to be allowed to travel.

The Egyptian authorities had closed the terminal on Tuesday on the occasion of the 23rd of July revolution and have kept it practically closed ever since the military coup that toppled president Mohammed Morsi less than a month ago.

Thousands of Palestinians suffer from restrictions on their travel in and out of the Gaza Strip due to the closure of the sole crossing with the outside world.

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Crisis in Gaza

The ripple effects of the Egyptian crisis represented by the overthrow of President Mohammed Morsi and the demonstrations that followed have reached neighboring Palestinians ini Gaza. The supply of goods smuggled from Egypt through underground tunnels has nearly come to a halt, severely exacerbating the economic hardship already being suffered by the Palestinian residents of the besieged coastal strip.

The Palestinian government in Gaza had come to rely heavily on the taxes and tariffs imposed on goods flowing through the crossings with Israel and the tunnels with Egypt to cover monthly costs and payments for governance, especially after the waning of international funding, especially from Iran.

The amount of goods entering Gaza through the tunnels had been equal to that coming in through the crossings with Israel. The Palestinian government taxes the majority of the Egyptian products to raise revenue, while the taxes on the Israeli supplies, including basic goods, go to the government in Ramallah.

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A copy of a confidential local comparative study on goods entering Gaza through the Egyptian tunnels versus the Israeli Karam Abu Salem crossing. The study, procured from a source who preferred to remain anonymous, reveals that the majority of basic goods enters Gaza through the tunnels, not through the crossings.

The goods that entered Gaza via tunnels during the first quarter of 2013: 65% of flour, 98% of sugar, 52% of rice, 100% of fresh fish, 100% of steel and cement and 94% of gravel. On the other hand, 76% of wheat, 88% of cattle feed and 65% of soft drinks entered through the Karam Abu Salem crossing.

The Hamas government takes in some 30 million shekels (about $8.3 million) in the form of taxes on smuggled fuel from Egypt. In addition, the government imposes a tax of 20 shekels ($5.54) on every ton of cement. On average, 70,000 tons enter Gaza monthly.

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Palestinian Economy Minister in Gaza, Alaa al-Rafati affirmed the extent to which the Egyptian crisis had taken its toll on the Palestinian economy by disrupting major sectors because of shortages in needed imports. Rafati told “The Gaza Strip has lost around $225 million during the past month due to the halt of imports, namely, fuel and crude materials for construction, such as cement, gravel and steel.”

Rafati also noted the delicacy and human dimension of the economic situation. In June, approximately 20,000 Palestinian workers in the construction sector were laid off due to shortages of construction supplies. He commented, “There is a risk that unemployment will emerge again, which greatly affects the local purchase activity.”(T/P03)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)