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U.S. brokers deal on Gaza goods crossing
Kerem Shalom is a three-way crossing at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip which connects Israel, Egypt and Gaza. Israeli, PA, US, EU and Egyptian officials met Sunday afternoon at US Ambassador Richard Jones's residence in Herzliya Pituah to look for a compromise over the crossing points issue that would allow the passage of badly needed food into Gaza. The meeting came amid reports that the food situation in Gaza was becoming desperate. The PA has been demanding the reopening of the Karni crossing, something Israel has refused to do because of a number of warnings that terrorist attacks would occur if the passage were opened. Western diplomatic officials said that the PA believed Israel's refusal to open up Karni, and its insistence in opening up Kerem Shalom instead, had less to do with security needs and more to do with an interest in getting out of the customs envelope agreement with the PA. The 1994 Paris Protocols created a single customs union between Israel and the PA which allowed goods to move between them tax-free. The accord harmonized the tax structure of Israel and the PA and provided for PA goods to be exported under the same conditions and in the same ships and airplanes as Israeli goods. Undoing this envelope would have a devastating impact on the PA economy and is a possible lever Israel could use to combat a Hamas-led PA government that does not recognize Israel, renounce terrorism or accept previously signed agreements. Defense Ministry officials were scheduled to meet with their PA counterparts on Monday at the Kerem Shalom crossing to prepare for its planned opening later in the day. Officials estimated that the PA's refusal to accept goods from Israel was motivated by "political considerations" and was an attempt to "hurt Israel." Before the meeting at Jones's residence, the PA adamantly refused to allow anything through the Kerem Shalom crossing. Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, director of the Defense Ministry's Political Military Bureau, warned the PA at Sunday's meeting that Egypt was only capable of transferring 20 percent of the amount of goods Israel could transfer daily into the Gaza Strip. "We warned them, but they were firm in their refusal," one official said. Security officials warned against reopening Karni on Sunday, citing severe security alerts as the reason for the terminal's continued closure. The defense establishment, officials said, had obtained intelligence information regarding several terror cells planning attacks against the terminal. Karni had become a primary target for terror groups, officials explained, since it was the only place where Israelis were stationed near the Gaza Strip. The warnings included tunnels terrorists were digging near Karni or plans to infiltrate a bomb into the terminal. "Gaza is sealed and they can't succeed in infiltrating Israel, so they try to hit us at Karni," one official explained. The PA rejected claims of terror alerts near Karni, which it said was Gaza's "oxygen pipe," and accused Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz of closing the terminal for political purposes. Kerem Shalom, they said, was meant to serve as a pedestrian crossing and was unsuitable for the transfer of goods. "There are no terror alerts at Karni," said Salim Abu Safiyyah, head of the PA Terminal and Border Security Department. "We dug around the terminal and did not find anything. This is all about politics." The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) issued a report Sunday stating that as a result of the extended closure of Karni "most bakeries in the Gaza Strip today are closed, because wheat flour stocks have finished. Bread is the staple food for 1.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. There are long lines of people outside the few bakeries that still have limited stocks of bread and the bakeries are rationing bread to those waiting." According to the report, the usual 30- to 60-day wheat stock kept in Gaza had been exhausted, and "other basic food commodities are in extremely short supply, including dairy products and fruit. Rice and sugar are selling at more than twice their normal price and are also very difficult to find in stores." The OCHA report blamed the closing of Karni for the crisis, and said that Kerem Shalom did not have the capacity to deal with the amount of wheat that needed to be shipped into Gaza. Posted by: lotp 2006-03-20 |
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