Despite the economic growth in Gaza, many destroyed homes still haven't been rebuilt. Photo: RafahKid (flickr)

Despite the continued blockade on goods in Gaza, the area is experiencing its first period of economic growth since 2007, largely due to Egyptian policy changes.

New luxury hotels, a shopping mall, and dozens of schools are all signs of increased economic development and decreased dependence on Israeli goods since the blockade began four years ago, the New York Times reported in June. Jobs have been increasing and over 1,000 factories are up and running, according to Hamas. While the growth has put unemployment back below 25 percent and allowed the rebuilding of hundreds of homes, Gaza still struggles.

Electricity is inconsistent, leaving hospitals and schools vulnerable. In the last four years, the number of people living on less than $1.60 a day has tripled. Reliance on food aid remains extremely high and thousands of homes are not yet rebuilt. “For the vast majority in Gaza, things are not improving,” a Gazan medical student told the New York Times. “Most people in Gaza remain forgotten.”

Increased trade from Egypt has led to real improvements, but the blockade still inhibits development of meaningful infrastructure that improves lives long term.

With new border policies, humanitarian aid cargo may finally be allowed into Gaza. Photo: Peter Casier (flickr)

Derar Mohamed, our blogger from Gaza, writes on the economic and social issues facing the Middle East today.

Gaza is a 139-square-mile area of land, according to the CIA World Factbook, with a population density reaching one of the highest in the world—12,000 people per square mile. This big society's needs are growing constantly while all six Israeli borders and the seventh Egyptian border that link it to life have remained closed. However, toward the end of last May, the Egyptian authorities decided to re-open the Rafah crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip to partially ease the blockade that Israel has imposed on Gaza since 2006.

From an economic, social, and political point of view, the opening of the border will improve access to many essential needs for Gazan people. Gazans, including scholarship holders seeking higher education, contractors with jobs outside of Gaza and patients looking for better treatment options, would finally be able to fulfill their right of traveling freely to the outside world without feeling trapped just because of where they live.

Second, the opening would make it easier to bring the necessary raw construction materials that would allow for reconstruction from some serious understructure and infrastructure damages after the Israeli assault in 2009.

Finally, as the strip is mostly dependent on the “often-closed” Israeli borders to bring in decent goods and aid, Gazans have been forced to depend on smuggling goods through tunnels. This dangerous job has taken the lives of hundreds of Palestinians who suffer from unemployment. The opening of the crossing would partially solve this issue by increasing the amount and safety of commercial exchange being processed through the border between Gaza and Egypt.

Many political reactions followed the re-opening of the border. Nabil al Arabi, former Egyptian interim foreign minister and the new Arab League Secretary-General, has declared that closing the Rafah border under the Mubarak regime was "disgraceful," while Israel has described the re-opening of the border as a "national failure." I can still remember the humiliation I faced along with many other Palestinians on the border; I cannot imagine how giving people parts of their lost dignity and basic human rights back can be considered as a "national failure."

The hours I waited on the Palestinian side of the border cannot be easily wiped away from my memory. I made it through, though tens of ill people, businessmen and students were rejected.

While the border is officially opened again, it has been closed several times, according to a report done by Democracy Now. Egypt claims that there has been some necessary repair work; Palestinians claim that Egypt is being exposed to international pressures to withdraw its decision of re-opening the border.

As the border opens and closes, Palestinians in Gaza are looking forward to seeing and connecting with the outside world; to bring Gaza to the world, and to bring the world to Gaza.