A black market for cigarettes is booming in the besieged Gaza Strip, a window into the lawlessness and desperation in the enclave nine months into the war.
A black market for cigarettes is booming in the besieged Gaza Strip, a window into the lawlessness and desperation in the enclave nine months into Israel’s war against Hamas.
The UN has said it may need to cease aid operations in starvation-gripped Gaza if it cannot protect its workers, among other factors. “There is security chaos,” said Yazan Ahmed, 34, who worked as a restaurant manager in Gaza City. Displaced in central Gaza, he now depends entirely on humanitarian food aid and can no longer afford cigarettes. “The strong are eating the weak.”Cigarette smuggling has long been a profitable business in Gaza, where a network of tunnels under the border with Egypt were used to circumvent the economic blockade.
His current route begins in West Bank fruit and vegetable markets, where people working with him pay a driver to conceal cigarettes in commercial items destined for Gaza. The cigarettes are then loaded onto a prearranged truck and driven out of the occupied West Bank through the Israeli-controlled Tarqumiya checkpoint and dropped off at Kerem Shalom, the last remaining crossing into southern Gaza.
From there, drivers hired by humanitarian groups or private traders pick up the cargo – if the road is clear of fighting and Israeli operations “We communicate with the Israeli side to co-ordinate the crews that we work with, who are monitored by the Israeli side via reconnaissance planes,” Aqel said. His security is unarmed, he said, to avoid confrontation with Israeli forces. Yet his trucks have not been spared the chaos.
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