Gaza donkey market heats up

Independent:

It's not surprising the buyers at yesterday's weekly donkey market here were looking over their prospective purchases with care. They opened the jaws of the tolerant beasts to examine their teeth, and test-drove them, harnessed to a cart, out of the crowded yard to gauge their pulling power.

"You need to make sure that it doesn't kick people with its back legs, that it's strong and that the colour of the coat is all right," said Saber Dabour, 25. He had just bought a donkey for 410 Jordanian dinars, or just under £290.

For, while working donkeys have been bought and sold in Gaza since before Samson pulled down the Philistines' temple, it is a long time since they have been as valuable as they are now. Prices have risen, according to the traders, by up to 60 per cent since Israel closed off the enclave after Hamas's enforced takeover of the Strip almost six months ago.

Yet despite that – and, he says, that the donkey feed has also gone up from five to 15 shekels (£1.95) a day since June – Mr Sabour has decided it makes sense to sell his car and buy the creature instead. The unemployed Mr Dabour has sold his car and now intends to use a donkey and cart to sell cucumbers, onions and other vegetables door to door. "There are no jobs here, so I am going to create my own work," he said.

Pointing out that vehicle spare parts have dried up since the closure, Mr Dabour added: "A donkey doesn't need tyres, it doesn't need spare parts, and it doesn't need gasoline."

The reduction in fuel supplies from Israel into Gaza – declared a "hostile entity" by the Israeli cabinet in September – in response to continued Qassam rocket fire, has certainly quickened demand for donkeys as well as hitting water and sewerage provision. And the crisis this week, which led to the closure of petrol stations for several days, had led to a lower-than-usual 300 or so donkeys on sale in Shajaia yesterday, according to a cart-maker, Ashraf Kishko. Potential sellers were waiting to see how quickly fuel would return to the pumps.

Mr Kishko, 40, said that, with the added demand and the increased price of wood because of the closures, the carts he has been working overtime to turn out have also doubled in price, to about 120 dinars. "Without gasoline, people think it best to buy a donkey," he said. "We are going back to the period of the Turks."

Mr Kishko's reference to the last occupation of Gaza but three, which ended in 1917, is not an idle one. Here in this suburb east of Gaza City, only a couple of kilometers from an Israeli border on the other side of which new Toyotas and Daihatsus cruise on smooth first-world roads, the market displays the early signs of what some economists call "de-development".

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There is nothing like a Hamas government to take you back in time 90 years. Donkeys are quite inexpensive in this part of Texas. Young ones can be purchased for less than a good dog and they are surprisingly good watch animals. Right now a donkey cost about $75. If it were not for the transportation cost, they could probably be sold for a handsome profit in Gaza.

Recent reports suggest that Hamas's approval rating is down to about 20 percent. They have really made an ass of their government and have driven their people to the use of an ass for transportation.