A stitch-up? Gaza's hopes for a renewed clothing industry

Mohammad Abu Shannab runs a clothing manufacturing factory in a northern district of Gaza City. But where he once had 40 workers behind the machines, just 15 remain.

Abu Shannab has been in the business since 1986, but in 2007, he and many other employers were forced to greatly slow down output, due to the imposition of the Israeli siege.

"Only over the past five months, have I been able to expand my working capacities, as Israel last year eased some of the restrictions on imports and exports to and from the territory," Abu Shannab told The New Arab.

And he's not afraid to diversify his product range.

"We are prepared to produce some hats, those worn by Orthdox Jews, after I contracted with an Israeli client."

Since 2007, Abu Shannab's workers have been largely restricted to producing clothes for the local market in Gaza - mainly uniforms for Gazan school children and some long dresses for their mothers.

Rafiq Omar, a veteran member of Abu Shannab's staff, is sewing one such long dress.

"I myself have been working here for the past 25 years and I do remember very well how our workload was, before 2007. During that time, we used to work 26 days a month, in addition to several overtime working hours," he told The New Arab.

"But since 2007, we have been working five to 10 days a month. We hope that the cycle of production will soon start running the way it used to run, 10 years ago."

Abu Shannab says the recent easing of restrictions was not enough for that to happen.

"Actually, what we hope for is that Israel reopens the northern Eretz crossing, which was recently opened for the entry of new vehicles into the coastal territory... Delivering our goods through the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza has proved costly and time-consuming," said the 60-year-old.

He also noted that the garment sector, as a whole, depends on staff members over the age of 35.

"Actually, we look forward to training more garment workers from the young generations, as this profession needs some energetic personnel. Our old staff members are able to train those new generations, yet this should be done with the help of some international parties and job creation programmes.

"I believe that if the garment business itself improves, I myself can have new good workers within a period of six months," he added.

At another facilicity, said to be the largest producer of children's clothes in Gaza, about 90 workers were hunched over their sewing machines, bent in labour, producing uniforms ahead of the new school year.

Tayseer al-Ostaz, owner of the al-Ostaz factory, and head of the Gaza-based Union of Garment Manufacturers, told The New Arab that the recent ease of travel restrictions had been of some limited help.

"In March of this year, we were able to meet with representatives of 16 Israeli firms and managed to sign contracts with six of them. Since then, Gaza-produced clothes have been sold out in the Israeli market," he said.

"For us, this is a slight development that needs to be bigger. What we seek is to build up some more confidence among Israeli clients, as well as West Bank-based companies, to which we export. This can only happen if Israel allows more producers of garments from Gaza to cross the borders for a face-to-face meetings."

Power supply

Manufacturer Monther Alharazeen lost his factory and his home in 2014, when Israeli missiles fell on both, in Shujaiya, a neighbourhood in the east of Gaza. He took a bank loan and sold a small piece of land and has been able to import 40 modern machines to rebuild his production capacity.

"My workers worked only half of this month, with less demands for clothes from Israeli and West Bank clients. I managed to work out 1000 pieces for an Arab client in Israel," he said.

"Since then, I have not been able to produce for the local market, simply because of a shortage of power supply. If I am to use generators, I will not be able to even cover the running costs. We demand real support for our battered sector from the local authorities - otherwise, we cannot compete."

Best products

Gaza-based merchants once dealt almost exclusively with locally produced clothes, considering them better than those imported from China, Turkey or Jordan. But with the deterioration of the sector over the past decade, a majority of retailers have turned to imported goods.

In the most commercial street in Gaza City, veteran vendor Toufic Alnaffar told The New Arab of his hopes for the local garment sector to return to pre-blockade normal operations.

"You see this imported t-shirt; it has been missing from the market for the past two months. I have looked for it but could not find it. Locally produced clothes are fine products that many of our clients prefer to imported ones," he says.

Alnaffar's neighbour, Masoud Alhelo, echoed his sentiment: "We do hope that locally produced clothes spread far and wide in the territory. Actually, with the current bad economic conditions, many of my customers demand local products. You know, prices of imported clothes are higher than those of local ones. I can tell that local products are so good, in terms of price and material."

Om Haytham Alhaddad, a mother of four children, is trying to buy school uniforms for her four school children.

"In fact, I always seek local products - for both price and quality," she told The New Arab. "They are fine and they can compete with internationally produced clothes."

Hell for leather

Israel has prevented the entry of modern leather-working machinery to the coastal enclave, meaning the leather industry has been particularly badly affected among the collapse of Gaza's industries.

"Israel [also] banned import of some basic materials for leather production, such as dyes and chemical substances like sodium and chlorine. All under the pretext of 'double use', mainly military use," said a spokesperson at Gaza's Ministry of Industry.

Gaza's garment merchants have a proven strong local demand as well the remote potential of a lucrative Israeli export market. But access remains a problem.

Just 120 of 900 plants are running. Still, there's hope that the recent relaxation on exports will improve the economy and in recent months, 35 plants have begun filling orders for Israeli markets.

But getting the products out of the Gaza Strip will be slow.

There used to be six commercial crossings - now there's just one - making it very hard for Palestinians in Gaza to do business.

But hope remains that the relaxation of export rules will be the first steo towards restoring business as usual - and won't be the latest stitch-up of Palestinians in Gaza.

Rami alMeghari is a Palestinian freelance journalist living and working in Gaza. Follow him on Twitter: @writeralmeghari