Israel eased a major restriction on the Gaza Strip last week. For the first time in six years, limited commercial shipments of cement and iron were allowed through Israel into Gaza.
The 70 trucks per weekday will barely put a dent in the need in Gaza, where demand for housing is high and construction work is a quick way to cut unemployment. But it is a significant decision for Israel, connected to larger strategic issues, including the upheaval in neighboring Egypt and the recently restarted Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
For the past several years, much of the cement and rebar that came to Gaza arrived through smuggling tunnels from Egypt. Israel allowed only materials for thoroughly documented humanitarian projects, fearing militants would use concrete and rebar to build bunkers.
But after the Egyptian military took control in Cairo three months ago, Egypt began systematically destroying the tunnels. Construction materials in Gaza became hard to get, making an already weak economy worse.
A Peaceful Gesture
Guy Inbar, the spokesman for the Israeli military unit that manages all goods going between Israel and Gaza, says the change in policy came due to a request by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen.
"We hope the people in the Gaza Strip will understand that Abu Mazen and the situation in the West Bank is better than what is happening right now with Hamas," Inbar says.
Abbas leads the Palestinian political party Fatah and rules the West Bank. He is also negotiating with Israel for a peace deal. As part of these negotiations, and under international pressure, Israel has made several gestures to ease economic restrictions on Palestinians and to support Abbas.
The Palestinian faction Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, is an enemy of Israel. It is also in bad economic shape. Hamas has so little money it paid only half salaries for August, and those came a month late, says Ghazi Hamad, Gaza's deputy foreign minister. He says Hamas is just trying to keep its head above water.
"The main two problems [are] the building materials and the fuel," Hamad says.
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