GAZA (JNI) — Hamas manipulates Gaza’s fuel market and skims off profits at the expense of consumers, Gazan journalists and activists allege.
“The story starts with diesel brought in for companies and international organizations at very low prices,” Gazan journalist Ali Shreim told Ramallah-based Al-Awda TV on Friday. “This diesel is brought in by international organizations to operate water pumps, hospitals, and bakeries for free.” In practice, however, much of the diesel is sold on the black market in Gaza, he said, through a network of corrupt NGO officials and Hamas. “The distributors record fake consumption, so if a cup of water or a loaf of bread costs less than half a liter to produce, they write down that it cost a liter and a half, and they keep the difference.”
“The comptrollers inside the NGOs profit from this too,” Shreim added. “Hamas has figured out who works in these institutions and among the private contractors, and it has made deals with them to put the diesel up for sale at six times its original price.”
Gazan radio journalist Ahmad Said made similar allegations about Hamas in a Facebook video monologue. Importers supply fuel to Gaza wholesale for 5 to 6 shekels per liter (about $1.80), he said, but “Hamas and black-marketeers take the diesel and sell it at whatever price they want — most recently, 80 shekels or even 90 shekels per liter.” Said’s video won 120,000 views on Facebook.
“Gazans are the ones who pay the price in the end, and suffer the consequences of market manipulation,” activist Muhammad Hadayid said in his own Facebook video. “The exact same thing applies to other goods, like cooking oil and basic supplies … Goods enter at a certain price, but by the time they reach ordinary citizens, the price has skyrocketed.”
Without naming Hamas, Hadayid urged Gazans to hold the territory’s leadership accountable. “Let’s not go after Egypt or the international organizations bringing in aid. We all know who has the capacity here to turn people’s needs and suffering into a business … We know who is making deals at the cost of our lives.”
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