Palestinian goods begin steady flow into Israel

By Thanassis Cambanis, Globe Staff | June 5, 2006

KARNI CARGO CROSSING, Israel -- Palettes of fresh produce, seafood, and office furniture rolled into Israel from the Gaza Strip last week, marking the first substantial flow of goods from the economically battered Palestinian territory since February.

The shipments were made possible by tentatively loosened Israeli security closures at the heavily guarded crossing points into Gaza, a policy that Amir Peretz, the dovish leader of the Labor Party, ordered in mid-May, shortly after taking over as defense minister.

"The view of Amir Peretz is that we will do whatever needs to be done to fight terrorism, but he believes we can do that while relieving the stress on the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank," a spokeswoman for the defense minister said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Peretz's position on the Gaza crossings signals a departure for the Israeli government, which has imposed a strict regime of closures on the movements of goods and people across Palestinian Authority borders in response to terror alerts, especially after Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections in January.

Palestinian officials said they're pleased with the change in the last two weeks -- a steady flow of imports into Gaza, and during the last nine days of May about 20 truckloads of exports a day out of Gaza, compared with zero during much of the previous four months. But they cautioned that it is far less than what Israel had agreed to in a widely touted agreement brokered by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in November, which set a target of 150 truckloads of exports a day by the end of last year.

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