Gaza Greenhouse’s First Harvest
Back in the summer of 2005, Israel made a deal to leave 10,000 greenhouses behind when it withdrew its citizens from Gaza. This was a problem for symbolic and practical reasons. First, it was a practical problem to “reward” the Israelis with money for not taking their property with them. Second it was a symbolic problem to have the Israelis destroy one of the only industries in the strip. An American Jewish group bought the greenhouses and had them transfered over to the PA, avoiding both problems. There was also some later flap about Palestinians “not knowing how to run the greenhouse farms,” and looting / destroying the greenhouses just after the hand-over.
Today, the NYT has an article about the first harvest of strawberries, cherry tomatoes, peppers, and herbs from the greenhouses under Palestinian control. The produce and its export (to Israel, Europe and North America) added urgency tothe deal that Dr. Rice brokered on the Karni border crossing.
The farms employed about 4,000 Palestinians before the handover. The article does not say how many are currently working on the farms, but it’s got to be substantial.
“I think we have made this a success in a very short period,” said Bassil Jabir, director of the Palestine Economic Development Company, a government group that works with the private sector and is overseeing greenhouse rehabilitation.
“We are employing thousands of people in these greenhouses,” Mr. Jabir said during an interview in the former settlement of Gadid, in the southwest corner of Gaza, as he visited the flourishing greenhouses. “We kept the growing cycle intact. We have pumped a lot of money into the Gaza economy.”