Let the Desert Bloom: Gazan Flower Exports to Europe

In an exceptional lifting of the blockade on Gaza, Israel is allowing Gazan flower farmers to export their product to Europe through the end of May when the growing season concludes. Since 2006-2007 Israel has prevented the vast majority of flower exports. Flowers are an important part of the Gazan economy. As Erin Cunningham in the Christian Science monitor reports:

Gaza was one of Europe’s main flower suppliers before Israel halted commercial and agricultural exports from the territory. Gaza’s last shipment of flowers was a truckload of 25,000 stems symbolically allowed out for Valentine’s Day earlier this year.

Yusuf Shaath, the cash crops project manager for the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC), a local development organization that works closely with farmers, says the sector expects to earn $6.3 million with this year’s harvest, after a near-total collapse over the past two years.

Over the past few years, since the flowers could not be exported, many were fed to livestock in Gaza.