For the first time since 2007, Gazan farmers will begin exporting vegetables to Israel, a Palestinian official has said. "Two shipments, made up of 30 tons of tomatoes and eggplants, will be exported to the Israeli market on Thursday," Tahseen al-Saqqa, a marketing director at the Palestinian Agriculture Ministry, told Anadolu Agency.
The Israeli army said last week that Gazan farmers would be able to sell vegetables to Israeli buyers for the first time since 2007 when Israel imposed an airtight blockade on the Palestinian enclave. The move comes as Israel marks "shmita," a Jewish holiday for which farmers must let their land lie fallow once every seven years.
Some 44,000 workers – about 11 percent of Gaza's total workforce – earn their living by working in agriculture-related jobs, according to Saqqa. Israel recently allowed Gaza to export a handful of foodstuffs, including tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants, sweet peppers, zucchini, strawberries and fish, to the occupied West Bank.
