Business & Economy

While the goal of developing tourism, in particular rural tourism, may have at its origins socially benevolent intentions, it cannot transcend the same economic barriers that the Israeli occupation creates for all aspects of the Palestinian economy. Charlotte Silver analyzes for The Electronic Intifada.

It was midday on a Monday when 61-year-old Hamdan Abu Shallouf bent down, laboring away in his small home garden among his okra plants. There is something special about Abu Shallouf’s crops in the rural area of Khirbet al-Adas in Rafah in southern Gaza Strip.

London, UK (IRIN) - The first day of the Palestinian olive harvest officially began on 15 October, and Rani Ali and his family — like hundreds of others — were out among their olive trees, starting to bring in what looks to be a good harvest.

KHIAM, Lebanon (IPS) - The contours of a modern medieval castle stretch along the Wazzani River delineating Lebanon’s border with Israel. A few meters away from the United Nations-mandated Blue Line, on Lebanon’s first line of fire with Israel, a tourism project at an estimated cost of 20 million dollars is slowly taking shape.

GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - As the many colors of the fish and flowers slowly disappear from the Gaza landscape, the already grim prospects of the besieged residents begins to look even bleaker.

Israel’s policy towards strawberry farming in Gaza, and particularly their exports, is a demonstration in the economics of occupation.

GAZA CITY, occupied Gaza Strip (IPS) - Said Hillis, 60, has kept bees since he was a boy. Until the Israeli attacks changed his business. Until 2009 Hillis’ farm had hundreds of trees, and more than 10,000 chickens. “It was all destroyed during the Israeli attacks,” Hillis says.

”Shurafa Tourist and Travel Company has been operating in Gaza since 1952,” Nabil Shurafa, general manager of the company, says proudly. This historical background is significant, as much for understanding the many and various forms of movement restrictions with which Shurafa Travel has had to deal during Gaza’s 43 year occupation as for providing a rationale for how and why Shurafa remains open under the current restrictions.

BRUSSELS (IPS) - New evidence has been uncovered to show that Dexia, a major Belgian-French bank, is still financing Israeli settlements in the OPT despite official assurances that such loans have ceased. Jean-Luc Dehaene, a former Belgian prime minister and now Dexia’s chairman, announced last year that the bank had not approved any new loans to authorities located in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank since June 2008.