Today, what is or is not allowed into Gaza is never entirely clear and can change from month to month. Broomsticks and chamomile have recently been permitted; toys, music, books, and shampoo with conditioner have been prohibited; and the importation of pasta required the direct intervention of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Almost all of the materials needed for reconstruction after Operation Cast Lead last year have been blocked, although some imports of glass have finally been permitted after months of extended negotiation. As a result of this, there is little productive enterprise within Gaza today. It is only recently that Israel has started to permit limited exports of cut flowers and strawberries, for example, after seven months of blockage. The number of employees in the industrial and construction sectors has fallen from over 53,000 in 2007 to fewer than 3,000 today. According to the most recent report from the World Bank and PalTrade, 70 percent of industrial establishments are closed, 20 percent are operating at 10 percent capacity, and only 10 percent are working at 20-50 percent capacity. Even watching the otherwise beautiful sight of a Gaza sunset as I did recently, one is reminded of the restrictions in place by staccato bursts of Israeli naval gunfire warning Palestinian fishermen to keep their boats inshore.
Most of what one buys in Gaza seems to have come through a tunnel: shoes, clothing, chocolate bars, utensils, appliances. Even fiancés, livestock, automobiles, and a lion have been brought into Gaza this way. (The drugged but uncaged lion, it seems, woke up part way across. After puzzling how to recapture it, smugglers built two halves of a makeshift cage, which were then separately lowered into the tunnel from the Gaza and Egyptian ends, and very, very carefully pushed together.)
