Gaza sees cars smuggled from Libya

No one could believe it when they saw fancy brand new cars parking at the dealing stores in Gaza city had been recently smuggled from Libya. Palestinian smugglers in the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave invested the troubles that Libya has been witnessing over the past three months to bring various kinds of brand new cars to Gaza, covering the shortage of new cars in Gaza due to four years of Israeli blockade. Cars from Libya are cheaper than those allowed into the enclave from Israel and some South Korea-made vehicles still carried the Libyan plates. Abu el-Abed, one of the smugglers, who declined to give his real name, told Xinhua that this year he managed to bring nine fancy brand new cars from Libya through his tunnel and sold them to a dealer from Gaza. Most of the smuggled cars are four by four jeeps. "The prices of smuggling cars are different, depending on the size and model," he said, adding that he and other smugglers earn about 12,000 U.S. dollars from each car. Despite around four years of a tight blockade, Israel had allowed several months ago brand new cars into the enclave, however, the supply is not enough to meet the local demand. Ismail Nakhala, chief of cars dealers association told Xinhua that the Israeli authorities had only allowed around 1,000 new cars in the Gaza Strip since September 2010, adding 'the Gaza market needs 5,000 new ones." However, smuggling cars is accurately observed by the deposed government of Hamas in Gaza. Hassan Okasha, an official in transportation ministry of Hamas government told Xinhua that the ministry is demanding Gaza dealer to bring the needed official documents for smuggled cars in order to get the license. "We found that many smuggled cars were stolen," said Okasha, adding that "the law never forgives any dealer to deal with stolen cars." - Xinhua