Under its truce with Hamas, Israel has permitted shipments of frozen meat, soft drinks, cookies, jam, shampoo, clothing and other items. However, the amounts are insufficient for the entire population.
In September 2007 - three months after Hamas took over the Gaza Strip, and after the main cargo crossing, Karni, had been shut down - the Israeli government decided to allow only humanitarian necessities into Gaza. On June 19, 2008, pursuant to the truce, Israel decided to expand the list of goods allowed into the Strip. But since no formal government decision was ever made, there was never any explicit determination of what would be added to the basket of sanctioned goods.
Moreover, the once-busy Karni and Kerem Shalom crossings remain closed to trucks, though Karni operates a conveyor belt system for transferring cement and animal feed. So that leaves the Sufa crossing, where traffic is capped at 90 trucks a day.
United Nations officials say the volume of goods crossing into the Strip today is 46 percent of that in May 2007, on the eve of the Hamas takeover. PalTrade, the Palestinian private-sector trade center, reports similar findings. Since the truce began, for instance, printing paper has entered Gaza (218 tons in the first third of this month), but no other stationary supplies have come through. And the number of trucks entering Gaza is still just over half of what it was before the Hamas takeover in June 2007, when 9,400 cargo trucks a month entered the Strip.