Israel Still Importing Gaza Produce, Sparking Furious Online Reaction - Israel Today

Israel Still Importing Gaza Produce, Sparking Furious Online Reaction

Thursday, November 15, 2018 |  Israel Today Staff

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Topics:

Gaza

Palestinian Arabs living in the Gaza Strip infamously demolished all the farming equipment and facilities left behind by Israelis evacuating the coastal enclave in 2005. But that doesn't mean the now-Hamas-ruled territory has stopped producing fresh vegetable and fruits.

In fact, Israelis were shocked to discover that a large portion of the produce appearing on their supermarket shelves still comes from Gaza, despite Hamas and its terrorist allies routinely using the Strip as a launch site for rocket attacks on the Jewish state.

"Ever day you [Israelis] are eating vegetables from the same fields of terror from which they just fired 535 rockets in just two days," reported the online news service 0404, referring to the latest round of Gaza fighting in which Hamas pounded southern Israel.

"They are attacking in order to eliminate us, and we continue to spoil them with our money," the report continued, as a video clip showed boxes of fresh produce with stickers indicating that it was a "Product of Gaza" from a farmer named Ahmed Khaled Astel. Those stickers, noted 0404, are usually removed before the produce is sent to Israeli supermarkets so that customers won't know from where it came.

Indignant commenters on Facebook demanded that all such produce be destroyed until such a time that Gaza stops being a threat to the residents of southern Israel.

The report also called into question portrayals of Gaza as an impoverished territory incapable of feeding its residents.

If Gaza is producing enough fresh produce to actually export to Israel, then surely it has enough to feed local Gazans? Or, perhaps like in the case of other goods, the best produce is being sold so that Hamas and its cohorts can rake in the cash, while local residents are left to starve.

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