What has happened to prices in Gaza Strip?

[philly_bob]

Are retail store-owners "price-gouging" by charging higher prices?

How much higher?

And if they aren't price-gouging, why not? Does Hamas or a civil authority control this by punishing price-gougers?

Questions prompted by seeing pictures of residents shopping for food and supplies during three-hour cease-fire...

[Idealism]

1. During the air raids before the ground invasion

Hamas police were patrolling the streets making sure merchants weren't price gouging, according to several stories I read. I am uncertain how things are looking right now, its pretty dangerous to be on the streets if you are wearing a police outfit (hell even a U.N. vest will draw fire).

Most of the Strips residence subsist on less than $2 a day, and several U.N. officials estimate over 50% of the population are severely malnourished, with infants to the point of anemia. There are long bread lines during the cease fire that always run out before all who were waiting get a portion. It is a very grim situation.

[philly_bob]

3. 10,000 people per square mile + closed borders = humanitarian crisis

Thanks for info, Halo. Children can suffer permanent brain damage from malnutrition.

An article on the situation in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932009_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict) quotes a UN report that says there are "no safe havens, no bomb shelters and with closed borders, making it one of the rare conflicts where 'civilians have no place to flee.'"

One wonders how long the 1.4 million people in the Gaza Strip can survive. They must have strong family/social networks. A Human Rights group says "unemployment hovers at 60% and just 195 factories remain open out of 3900 in 2005" -- and that was before the bombing began.

There must be a 'guns or butter' choice for the people controlling the smuggling tunnels.

On January 3, an Israeli official denied that there was a humanitarian crisis, according to Haaretz.

This is the first time I've had a chance to research this situation beyond reading the headlines. My heart breaks at the position U.S. has taken on this, and I hope there will be a different direction under Obama. I feel helpless and sad.

[Idealism]

4. Yeah thats why this particular incident is so unreasonable

The thing that set this all off was the 'ticking tunnel' raids done by the IDF into Gaza on November 4th. Up until that point, Hamas has stopped rocket fire save for a dozen fired from the Islamic Jihad group. The tunnels were destroyed because the IDF said they were used to kidnap an Israeli soldier (which they kidnapped one in 2006 iirc but none since). The tunnels were mainly used as a lifeline into Gaza, with 90% of the imports being food and cooking oil, according to one Muslim journalist who has used them. The raid killed 6 Hamas police and within hours you had Qassam's on their way into Israel, and the number has escalated ever since.

[Name removed]

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