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🇮🇱🇵🇸 Israel is reopening commercial shipments into Gaza after a dispute over Hamas demanding roughly $3,225 per truck.
That's quite a price to put on bringing goods into a territory where much of the population depends on outside assistance.
According to Israel, merchants reported that Hamas had withdrawn its demand for the payments, allowing shipments to resume.
Hamas insists the money was a voluntary contribution from wealthier Gazans to support people in need.
But there's a bigger issue.
Israel controls whether commercial shipments enter Gaza. Hamas still has enough influence over local commerce for a dispute over its fees to interrupt those shipments.
And ordinary Palestinians are caught between the two.
Israel now plans to require documented bank transfers and exclude merchants found to have paid Hamas.
The ceasefire may have reduced the fighting, but it clearly hasn't settled who controls Gaza's economy.
Source: Reuters / Writer: Oliver
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Mike R @MikeRouah ·
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Careful, Mario.
You nearly slipped up and accidentally condemned Hamas just now, and your Qatar paymasters would be thoroughly disappointed with you if you so much as implied any condemnation of Hamas.
So far you’ve pulled off a pretty impressive performance of dancing between the raindrops, carefully avoiding praising those noble mass-murdering freedom fighters while just as carefully stopping short of condemning them. You were pretty close this time though.
