"In one of many reports and accounts of economic life in the Gaza Strip that I have recently read, I was struck by a description of an old man standing on the beach in Gaza throwing his oranges into the sea. The description leapt out at me because it was this very same scene I myself witnessed some 21 years ago during my very first visit to the territory. It was the summer of 1985 and I was taken on a tour of Gaza by a friend named Alya. As we drove along Gaza's coastal road I saw an elderly Palestinian man standing at the shoreline with some boxes of oranges next to him. I was puzzled by this and asked Alya to stop the car. One by one, the elderly Palestinian took an orange and threw it into the water. His was not an action of playfulness but of pain and regret. His movements were slow and labored as if the weight of each orange was more than he could bear. I asked my friend why he was doing this and she explained that he was prevented from exporting his oranges to Israel and rather than watch them rot in his orchards, the old man chose to cast them into the sea. I have never forgotten this scene and the impact it had on me." by Sara Roy, Senior Research Scholar at the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard.
Are Gazans still throwing their oranges into the sea?
In the period going from 21 March to 03 April 2007, the UN report on the implementation of the Agreement on Movement and Acess (AMA)* notes that: no commercial goods went through Rafah (the crossing point for exports to Egypt); Karni, the primary crossing point for commercial goods into and out of Gaza, was open for imports and exports on all schedules working days, although actual opering hours varied between 3 hours and 8,5 hours (i.e. 43% of schedules operating hours) and the number of trucks importing goods into Gaza exceeded that of exporting goods (p6). There were no operations at Seaport and Airport - still closed.*concerned with the movement of Palestinians and with the traffic of commercial goods into and out of Gaza.
