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Gaza in crisis as smugglers divert trade to Libya
Gaza in crisis? Johnson! Stop the presses! GAZA CITY (Maan) -- Egyptian fuel smugglers are expanding their network to Libya and reducing deliveries to Gaza causing a fuel crisis in the Strip, traders told Ma'an. Lousy bastids... Gaza trader Ayman Abu Shanab said Egypt was exploiting the unrest in Libya to smuggle fuel into the country for high prices. Libya has huge reserves of oil but due to the fighting in the country traders were smuggling fuel to the Libyan coast on fishing boats. Trader. Sounds so much better than "smuggler"... Abu Shanab said a liter of petrol in Gaza sold for less than one shekel ($0.29) but in Libya, Egypt could sell fuel for $1 per liter. So we're voting with our wallets. Good luck to our Palestinian "brothers"... Egyptian smugglers preferred to trade with Libya, leading to a shortages in the Gaza Strip, specialists in the coastal enclave said. Hmmmmm...wonder why that is? Gaza needs 200,000 liters of petrol daily but over the last week only 50,000 liters of fuel was smuggled into the Strip each day, Abu Shanab said. He said the gas smuggled into Gaza through tunnels under the Egyptian border was low quality, and that Egyptian smugglers had diluted the fuel. But we get back at them because we pay them in counterfeit money... Gaza gas station owners rejected the fuel, which was sometimes black, red or brown, he added. Vice-chairman of the assembly of oil and gas companies Mahmoud Al-Khazandar urged the Hamas government to establish a laboratory to test the quality of oil imported to Gaza. They already do that. If it explodes in the tunnel, it's good gas... "The quantities of fuel which entered Gaza in the past few days are limited, and the petrol doesnt match our fuel standard so we rejected some shipments," he added. Al-Khazandar called on the new Egyptian government to officially export gas to Gaza. At present, residents of Gaza relied on fuel smuggled from Egypt because Israeli gas was too expensive, costing around seven shekels ($2) a liter, he explained. Since Israel tightened its siege on the Gaza Strip in 2006, Palestinians have relied on goods smuggled from Egypt through underground tunnels. The tunnels provide a life-line to residents of the coastal enclave, but they are known locally as "death-traps" due to the frequency of fatal tunnel accidents. Posted by: tu3031 2011-06-20 |
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