Israel allows Valentine carnations out of Gaza
Israel has made a pre-Valentine's Day gesture by allowing 25,000 carnations to cross the border in the first exports permitted from blockaded Gaza in a year. But the shipment through the Kerem Shalom crossing was condemned as a "propaganda" move by Gaza growers used to exporting 37 to 40 million carnations a year and are unlikely to reach Europe in time to be sold in shops tomorrow.
Major Peter Lerner, of the military's civil co-ordination office, said Israel had agreed to relax the blockade for the carnations at the request of the Dutch government, which has long promoted production of carnations grown in the southern Gaza Strip.
But Abdul Karim Ashour of the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees in Gaza said that about 70 per cent of Gaza's carnation crop had already been lost because of the inability to export and because the blockade had prevented growers from importing seeds and pesticides early enough.
Growers had also been badly hampered by not being able to tend their crops during Israel's 22-day military offensive last month, he added. "What happened today is only propaganda. The season has finished. It is very sad." The blockade had not been lifted for vegetables nor Gaza's traditionally high-quality strawberries.
The Dutch pressure for the blockade to be lifted is understood to have been to remind buyers of Gaza's carnations so they would not be lost to future markets if and when the blockade is lifted. Ishai Sharon, of the Israeli farm products exporters Agrexco in Aalsmeer, Holland, said he expected the consignment to arrive by air tomorrow and most of it would probably be sold to eastern Europe where flowers are given for International Women's Day on 8 March.
