Description
This border crossing between Israel and Gaza was designed to accommodate some 40,000 people each day. The reality is around 350 people use it daily. The U.S. government paid for the facility which from the outside looks like a modern regional airport terminal. Most of the 350 people are health and hospital patients and their escorts, people from Gaza coming across to Israel for medical treatment. Interestingly, the granddaughter of the head of Hamas in Gaza (a body aiming for Israel’s destruction) has just this week been in Israel for medical treatment! Business people: approx. 120 businessmen per day. Journalists and aid workers; family visits for weddings, funerals, and similar. As Israel does not recognize Hamas (a terror organisation dedicated to Israel’s destruction) the Palestinian Authority acts as the buffer negotiator between Israel and the Hamas-led Gazan authority.
A fascinating briefing by an Israeli Lt.-Colonel explained how relations, or the lack of them, work between Israel and Gaza in a practical sense. The volume of goods traveling between Israel and Gaza is far more significant than the international media would let us believe; some 400 truckloads of goods a day arrive to Gaza. Food, fuel, jacuzzis, and all manner of items go through (though there are some forbidden items like things that can be used to make weapons).
