GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip: Palestinians in Gaza have coped with shortages of just about everything in more than a decade of border closures — from chocolate to medicines to fuel and building supplies. Now, six months of protests against an Israeli-Egyptian blockade have added an unexpected item to that list: car tires.
Tires are a favored item by demonstrators during the weekly protests — they are set on fire, then tossed toward Israeli troops across the border.
In response, Israel has halted tire imports into the strip, sending prices skyrocketing and forcing Gaza motorists to find creative solutions to keep their vehicles on the road.
Taxi driver Khaled Hamad has no spare tire in his trunk. His tires are worn down, but he could only afford to change two, replacing them with secondhand ones that aren’t even the standard size recommended by the manufacturer.
“Even when they were cheaper, upgrading my tires was expensive,” Hamad said as he kicked a bald front tire that still needs to be changed. “I make 40 shekels ($11) a day these days. Business is down.”
Protesters at the border marches burn old tires, using the thick black smoke to obscure the vision of Israeli snipers as they hurl rocks, firebombs and grenades toward Israeli forces on the other side of the fence diving Gaza and Israel. Flaming tires are also rolled toward the fence.
Ironically, the tire ban has had no effect on the protesters, who rely on a seemingly endless supply of old ones that are discarded in garages, fields and roadsides across the territory.
Rushdi Al-Khour, head of the association of Gaza spare parts merchants, which coordinates imports from Israel, said the tire shortage has caused severe losses for businessmen.
He said the cost of a pair of tires has jumped from $120 to $300 since the ban went into effect, a sizable sum in the economically struggling strip.
Fifteen distributors have lost up to $2 million so far, both in tires they bought from Israeli companies and in storage fees for shipments stuck at Israeli ports, according to Al-Khour.
“This is a wrong decision by the Israeli side,” he said of the ban. “Lift the siege and the protests will stop.”
The Hamas-led protests have been fueled by widespread despair over the difficult conditions created by the blockade. Unemployment is now over 50 percent, and Gazans get just a few hours of electricity a day.
Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza after Hamas, a militant group that opposes Israel’s existence, took control of the territory in 2007. Israel says the blockade, which restricts the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza, is necessary to isolate Hamas.
After coping with shortages of basic items for over a decade, Gazans have become adept at finding creative solutions.
In the attic of a small workshop in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip, Abdulla Al-Radie invented a rubbery filling for old motor scooter tires that he says extend their lifespan.
He recently changed the name of his shop to “Airless Tires Workshop” and began selling tires he claims cannot be punctured. To demonstrate, he plunged a knife and nails into a tire. He refused to say what the filling is made from, but said it involves five materials, including plastic and rubber.
At first, the fillings were produced in pipes, but they affected the balance of the wheels. He says he has improved his creation to make “round molds that fit the shape of the tire and sustain weight.”
About 50 tires were stacked at his shop on a recent day, and he said he sold twice that amount in September. He is now opening a new branch in the southern town of Rafah, where many residents have motorbikes.
“Today we started with motorcycles,” he said. “I hope next we will make them for cars.”
Fadi Diab, who owns a tire store and repair workshop, said he paid about $20,000 to store nine containers of tires stranded at an Israeli port.
“The prices have gone up and people don’t have money,” he said. “People come here when changing the tires is their last option. They want to use the tires as long as possible.”
Some businessmen managed to bring in three shipments of tires from Egypt in October, Diab said. That brought some temporary relief, he said, but sales remain low.
Only three new tires were seen stacked on a shelf in his shop, while dozens of gleaming metal wheels adorned the wall.
“Only those who rely on their cars for income ... replace their tires these days,” Diab added.
Hamad, the taxi driver, said he’d change his tires only when prices come down. “I’m afraid these old tires will keep flattening and affecting my work by delaying me from my customers.”
In Gaza, tire shortage hits motorists but not protesters
In Gaza, tire shortage hits motorists but not protesters
- Tires are a favored item by demonstrators during the weekly protests
- Israel has halted tire imports into the strip, sending prices skyrocketing
Army says 40 projectiles fired from Lebanon into central, northern Israel
- On Monday, one person was killed and several people injured in two separate incidents
“Following sirens that sounded between 09:50 and 09:51 in the Upper Galilee, Western Galilee, and Central Galilee areas, approximately 25 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israel. Some of the projectiles were intercepted and fallen projectiles were identified in the area,” the military said in a statement.
That announcement followed earlier reports that some 15 projectiles fired that set of air raid sirens.
A spokesperson for Israeli first responders said that in central Israel it found “four individuals with light injuries from glass shards.... They were injured while in a concrete building where the windows shattered.”
The Israeli police said they were searching the impact sites from projectiles intercepted by Israel’s air defense systems but did not report any serious damage.
On Monday, one person was killed and several people were injured in two separate incidents, one in the northern Israeli town of Shfaram and the other in the suburbs of Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv.
The military said Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, which is backed by Iran, fired around 100 projectiles from Lebanon toward Israel on Monday, while Israel’s air force carried out strikes on Beirut.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel in October last year in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza. Since September, Israel has conducted extensive bombing campaigns in Lebanon primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds, though some strikes have hit areas outside the Iran-backed group’s control.
US envoy Amos Hochstein arrives in Lebanon: state media
- US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that Washington had been sharing proposals with the Lebanese and Israeli governments
- Another Lebanese official said earlier that US Ambassador Lisa Johnson discussed the plan on Thursday with Prime Minister Najib Mikati
Beirut: US special envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in Lebanon for truce talks with officials on Tuesday, state media reported.
The United States and France have spearheaded efforts for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war.
On September 23, Israel began an intensified air campaign in Lebanon before sending in ground troops, nearly a year into exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of Palestinian ally Hamas after its October 7, 2023 attack sparked the war in Gaza.
A Lebanese official told AFP on Monday that the government had a positive view of a US truce proposal, while a second official said Lebanon was waiting for Hochstein’s arrival to “review certain outstanding points with him.”
On Monday, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that Washington had been sharing proposals with the Lebanese and Israeli governments.
“Both sides have reacted to the proposals that we have put forward,” he said.
Miller said the United States was pushing for “full implementation” of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006 and requires all armed forces except the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers to withdraw from the Lebanese side of the border with Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said that even with a deal Israel would “carry out operations against Hezbollah” to keep the group from rebuilding.
Another Lebanese official said earlier that US Ambassador Lisa Johnson discussed the plan on Thursday with Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Hezbollah-allied parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, who has led mediation efforts on behalf of the group.
If an agreement is reached, the United States and France would issue a joint statement, he said, followed by a 60-day truce during which Lebanon will redeploy troops in the southern border area, near Israel.
Lebanese authorities say more than 3,510 people have been killed since clashes began in October last year, with most fatalities recorded since late September.
Food shortages bring hunger pains to displaced families in central Gaza
- Almost all of Gaza’s roughly 2.3 million people now rely on international aid for survival, and doctors and aid groups say malnutrition is rampant
DEIR AL-BALAH: A shortage in flour and the closure of a main bakery in central Gaza have exacerbated an already dire humanitarian situation, as Palestinian families struggle to obtain enough food.
A crowd of people waited dejectedly in the cold outside the shuttered Zadna Bakery in Deir Al-Balah on Monday.
Among them was Umm Shadi, a displaced woman from Gaza City, who told The Associated Press that there was no bread left due to the lack of flour — a bag of which costs as much as 400 shekels ($107) in the market, she said, if any can be found.
“Who can buy a bag of flour for 400 shekels?” she asked.
Nora Muhanna, another woman displaced from Gaza City, said she was leaving empty-handed after waiting five or six hours for a bag of bread for her kids.
“From the beginning, there are no goods, and even if they are available, there is no money,” she said.
Almost all of Gaza’s roughly 2.3 million people now rely on international aid for survival, and doctors and aid groups say malnutrition is rampant. Food security experts say famine may already be underway in hard-hit north Gaza. Aid groups accuse the Israeli military of hindering and even blocking shipments in Gaza.
Meanwhile, dozens lined up in Deir Al-Balah to get their share of lentil soup and some bread at a makeshift charity kitchen.
Refat Abed, a displaced man from Gaza City, no longer knows how he can afford food.
“Where can I get money?” he asked. “Do I beg? If it were not for God and charity, my children and I would go hungry,”
Even with Lebanon truce deal, Israel will operate against Hezbollah — Netanyahu
- Lebanon’s government has largely endorsed US truce proposal to end Israel-Hezbollah war
- Israel insists any truce deal must guarantee no further Hezbollah presence in area bordering Israel
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel will continue to operate militarily against the Iran-backed Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah even if a ceasefire deal is reached in Lebanon.
“The most important thing is not (the deal that) will be laid on paper,” Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament.
“We will be forced to ensure our security in the north (of Israel) and to systematically carry out operations against Hezbollah’s attacks... even after a ceasefire,” to keep the group from rebuilding, he said.
Netanyahu also said there was no evidence that Hezbollah would respect any ceasefire reached.
“We will not allow Hezbollah to return to the state it was in on October 6” 2023, the eve of the strike by its Palestinian ally Hamas into southern Israel, he said.
Hezbollah then began firing into northern Israel in support of Hamas, triggering exchanges with Israel that escalated into full-on war in late September this year.
Lebanon’s government has largely endorsed a US truce proposal to end the Israel-Hezbollah war and was preparing final comments before responding to Washington, a Lebanese official told AFP on Monday.
Israel insists that any truce deal must guarantee no further Hezbollah presence in the area bordering Israel.
Defiant Lebanese harvest olives in the shadow of war
- A World Bank report this month said that “the disruption of the olive harvest caused by bombing and displacement is expected to lead to $58 million in losses” in Lebanon
KFEIR: On a mountain slope in south Lebanon, agricultural worker Assaad Al-Taqi is busy picking olives, undeterred by the roar of Israeli warplanes overhead.
This year, he is collecting the harvest against the backdrop of the raging Israel-Hezbollah war.
He works in the village of Kfeir, just a few kilometers (miles) from where Israeli bombardment has devastated much of south Lebanon since Israel escalated its campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah in September.
“But I’m not afraid of the shelling,” Taqi said, as he and other workers hit the tree branches with sticks, sending showers of olives tumbling down into jute bags.
“Our presence here is an act of defiance,” the 51-year-old said, but also noting that the olive “is the tree of peace.”
Kfeir is nine kilometers (six miles) from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, in the mixed Christian and Druze district of Hasbaya, which has largely been spared the violence that has wracked nearby Hezbollah strongholds.
But even Hasbaya’s relative tranquillity was shattered last month when three journalists were killed in an Israeli strike on a complex where they were sleeping.
Israel and Hezbollah had previously exchanged cross-border fire for almost a year over the Gaza conflict.
The workers in Kfeir rest in the shade of the olive trees, some 900 meters (3,000 feet) above sea level on the slopes of Mount Hermon, which overlooks an area where Lebanese, Syrian and Israeli-held territory meet.
They have been toiling in relative peace since dawn, interrupted only by sonic booms from Israeli jets breaking the sound barrier and the sight of smoke rising on the horizon from strikes on a south Lebanon border village.
Hassna Hammad, 48, who was among those picking olives, said the agricultural work was her livelihood.
“We aren’t afraid, we’re used to it,” she said of the war.
But “we are afraid for our brothers impacted by the conflict,” she added, referring to the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese displaced by the fighting.
Elsewhere in south Lebanon, olive trees are bulging with fruit that nobody will pick, after villagers fled Israeli bombardment and the subsequent ground operation that began on September 30.
A World Bank report this month said that “the disruption of the olive harvest caused by bombing and displacement is expected to lead to $58 million in losses” in Lebanon.
It said 12 percent of olive groves in the conflict-affected areas it assessed had been destroyed.
Normally, the olive-picking season is highly anticipated in Lebanon, and some people return each year to their native villages and fields just for the harvest.
“Not everyone has the courage to come” this time, said Salim Kassab, who owns a traditional press where villagers bring their olives to extract the oil.
“Many people are absent... They sent workers to replace them,” said Kassab, 50.
“There is fear of the war of course,” he said, adding that he had come alone this year, without his wife and children.
Kassab said that before the conflict, he used to travel to the southern cities of Nabatiyeh and Sidon if he needed to fix his machines, but such trips are near impossible now because of the danger.
The World Bank report estimated that 12 months of agriculture sector losses have cost Lebanon $1.1 billion, in a country already going through a gruelling five-year economic crisis before the fighting erupted.
Areas near the southern border have sustained “the most significant damage and losses,” the report said.
It cited “the burning and abandonment of large areas of agricultural land” in both south and east Lebanon, “along with lost harvests due to the displacement of farmers.”
Elsewhere in Kfeir, Inaam Abu Rizk, 77, and her husband were busy washing olives they plan to either press for oil or jar to be served throughout the winter.
Abu Rizk has taken part in the olive harvest for decades, part of a tradition handed down the generations, and said that despite the war, this year was no different.
“Of course we’re afraid... there is the sound of planes and bombing,” she said.
But “we love the olive month — we are farmers and the land is our work.”
