Word: gaza
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...abundance of cheap soft drinks provided a little refreshment in this sweltering environment. And the Yazegis were Gaza's kings of fizz. Ammar's grandfather opened the factory in 1954 and gradually acquired the franchises for Pepsi, 7Up and Mirinda (an orange-flavored drink) before passing on the business to his sons and later their sons. In his deserted office building, Ammar Yazegi, 27, serves guests chilled 7Up. "I find that 7Up from a glass bottle is most tasty. Don't you?" he asks. Yazegi, dressed in a black T shirt and matching denim jacket and jeans, looks...
Most businesses worry about competition, but for the Yazegis and other Gaza merchants, it's politics and the often deadly conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Gaza, along with the other Palestinian territory of the West Bank, was slapped with an economic blockade by Israel and the international community in early 2006 when Islamic militants belonging to Hamas--which is opposed to Israel's existence--won the Palestinian elections, beating President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Movement. That victory was reinforced in June when Hamas chased Fatah's armed militia out of Gaza. The Yazegis have thrived by steering clear of the fratricidal...
There was little Abdul-Latif could do in Gaza, where the Yazegis were caught out when Israel struck back against Hamas by banning imports of everything from cement to fertilizer, including the carbonating gas the Yazegis need to put fizzy bubbles into beverages. When the Yazegis asked why, Israeli authorities replied "for security reasons," although there didn't seem to be any military use of CO2. "If you hold a match to CO2, the flame is extinguished. You can't make bombs or rockets out of this stuff," says Yazegi. Adding to his frustration, he said, was that Israel initially...
...Gaza's economy has atrophied. According to the latest U.N. figures, the shortages tied to a June tightening of the blockade have led to the closure of 90% of Gaza's factories, idling more than 85,000 workers. The 300 people employed by the Yazegis were among them. "It broke my heart. Some of the workers were with us since my grandfather's time," says Yazegi, adding that because there were no other jobs in Gaza, each worker supported about nine family members. More than 80% of Gazans scrape by on $2 a day or less; most could not survive...
Israel's strategy is to squeeze Gaza's economy, cutting off all but a drip-feed of humanitarian aid in the hope that civilians will turn against the Islamists of Hamas. Critics condemn this tactic as an unjust "collective punishment" on all of Gaza's inhabitants. Nor has it stopped Palestinian militants from firing hundreds of homemade rockets into Israel. "What harm is our Pepsi doing to Israel?" asks Yazegi. "The Israelis aren't punishing Hamas, they're punishing the people. The militants have money, guns ... they don't care about the siege." He contends that after decades of conflict...