It is one of the most unusual rescue missions of the war. Her name ? “ConOps-Gaza”. A convoy of vehicles began recovering around 180 million shekels in cash, the equivalent of just under $50 million, in the northern Gaza Strip last Tuesday. reports this Friday, December 8 the Financial Times.
The approximately 900,000 notes, weighing almost a ton, were enough to fill a small shipping container. They were kept in two branches of the Bank of Palestine, both based in some of the most devastated areas of the besieged enclave, notes the British daily.
Worried about a growing cash shortage in southern Gaza, where the majority of the enclave’s 2.3 million residents have fled and where most of the recipients of humanitarian aid are now based, officials Bank of Palestine saw in the week-long temporary truce between Israel and Hamas a chance to recoup this sum. In southern Gaza, in fact, the Palestinian authorities are making efforts to maintain the flow of cash in the face of intense Israeli bombing.
Only six operational ATMs
This particular operation required extensive planning: UN support, Israeli authorization and very elaborate security. “It was certainly an unusual convoy. Surreal, but necessary,” a person involved in the logistics told the British daily.
Bank staff drove private cars to closed branches, removed money from vaults and restocked ATMs to keep them working. “We did this in ATMs and branches located in relatively safe areas,” said a Bank of Palestine official, noting that only six Bank of Palestine ATMs were operating in the south and center. from Gaza.
To try to avoid the collapse of the economy, banks have implemented various measures, such as extending the validity of bank cards that are about to expire. During the truce, some bank branches in southern Gaza also reopened to provide emergency services. Access to cash, on which Gaza’s economy depends, however, depends on electricity and the Internet. ATMs therefore do not operate during frequent power outages.
Residents facing soaring prices
Furthermore, inflation is raging in the Gaza Strip. Basic products like powdered milk, flour, salt and yeast are in extremely short supply and their prices have skyrocketed. The fresh milk has disappeared. The price of eggs tripled, that of flour increased tenfold and the price of a package of processed cheese rose from 3 to 10 shekels, or from 0.75 to 2.50 euros, before disappearing completely from the market, details THE Financial Times.
Additionally, the Palestinian Authority has been forced to cut civil servants’ salaries, paying only two weeks’ wages since the start of the war sparked by the Hamas attack on October 7. Even before the conflict, Gaza’s economy was unique: 81% of the population was considered poor and dependent on international aid, according to UN figures.
Asked by the Financial Times, Om Saher Khalil, 52, a mother of seven children displaced from northern Gaza to Rafah in the south, claims to have received nothing from the Palestinian Authority since the start of the war. “We have no allowance,” she laments. “We live on the help that people give us. We are cold, we never eat enough… What kind of life is this?”