Gisha is not alone. Over the last year, a growing number of voices in the Israeli media have called for an end to the closure of the Gaza Strip. The speakers – foremost among them Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – represent a broad spectrum of opinion in the Israeli public...
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Since the end of December 2009, 36 trucks loaded with strawberries and cut carnation flowers were permitted to leave Gaza for Israel's Ashdod port, from which they were shipped to Europe. This is the first time since January 2008 that strawberries have managed to leave the 41 kilometer-long Strip. The flowers have been a little luckier – prior to December 2009, Israel permitted the export of 19 truckloads of flowers during the past 2.5 years of closure, mostly around Valentine’s Day.
On December 6th, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a newsletter highlighting the economic situation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Though there are some miscalculations, for the most part the MFA's data are accurate. The real problem is that the numbers appear without context. In this week's post we provide context for the MFA's (mostly) correct numbers.