Trasiga sedlar och svarta pengar i belägrade Gaza

Traders charge commissions of 30% on hard currency while others repair bills by hand due to severe shortage.

Black market traders in Gaza have developed a lucrative business selling cash as Israel’s siege creates a currency shortage so severe that some Palestinians are forced to mend tattered bills and rusted coins by hand.

With Israel blocking deliveries of new cash into the strip, banks shuttered and ATMs empty, traders and brokers now control the supply of whatever hard currency is left, distributing it in exchange for electronic bank transfers and charging exorbitant fees.

Their commissions have surged since Israel renewed its full-blown siege this month, rising from about 15 per cent to 30 per cent. The mark-ups mean many desperate Gazans can barely even afford the money they’d need to secure food and other essentials, let alone the dwindling supplies themselves.

“A customer will transfer me Shk1,000 and only walk away with Shk700 in cash,” said one cash broker in northern Gaza, who did not want to be named.

The broker, who sold clothing before the war, said he buys currency from traders at a 24 to 25 per cent premium and sells it for 28 to 30 per cent.

The cash crunch has compounded the indignities of daily life in the enclave, which has suffered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises since Israel invaded in response to Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack.

While a ceasefire that started in January enabled a surge of aid, supplies are running low and food prices are soaring again after Israel shut down all of Gaza’s border crossings this month. Israel also last week restarted its military offensive, with officials threatening an even more ferocious campaign as they vow to destroy Hamas.

Mohammed Attieh, 44, had to find a cash broker this week to cover the cost of fleeing his home after Israel issued an evacuation order for his northern Gaza town of Beit Lahia.

He wired Shk2,500 ($680) to a broker in a nearby part of Gaza, and plans to bike there to pick up Shk1,750 in cash. A father of six, Attieh said hiring a donkey cart to move his family’s belongings from the neighbourhood alone would cost more than Shk200.

“I’m forced to pay it,” he said of the cash premium. “Displacement is expensive. You need to have cash with you.”

Before the war, the Palestine Monetary Authority — which acts as the central bank in Gaza and the occupied West Bank — would regularly resupply banks’ deposits and exchange worn-out currency for fresh money. But since October 7 2023, Israel has not responded to its requests for permission to bring cash into Gaza, the PMA told the Financial Times.

Most bank branches have been destroyed by Israeli air strikes or shut for fear of theft, with about $180mn of the $290mn worth of deposits in Gaza’s banks stolen, according to the PMA. Gaza’s last working ATM shut down in late 2024 when it ran out of cash.

Much of the remaining currency — which includes shekels, dollars and Jordanian dinars — is concentrated in the hands of powerful wholesalers who profit twice over from imports brought in through Israel or Egypt, according to brokers, economists and monetary policy officials.

Traders pay for imports with bank transfers then sell the foreign goods for cash. Money brokers then buy cash from the traders at a steep commission and sell it to customers at an even higher premium. With most vendors refusing to take bank transfers or digital payments during the war, people have little choice but to procure hard currency.

“All of Gazan society has been forced to deal in cash, because those who import and own the goods have insisted on cash payments,” said Saif al-Deen Odeh, a professor and monetary policy expert in Gaza.

Much of the money circulating in the enclave is so worn out that many vendors refuse to accept it, giving rise to a new occupation: cash repairers who painstakingly mend ripped, dirty, or rusted money.

Abu Mohammed, from northern Gaza, honed a technique for fixing tattered bills after he had $200 rejected by shopkeepers.

A building contractor by profession, he learned to dunk worn and dirty bills in chlorine, wash them in water, then lay them out to dry. For coins covered in a stubborn rust, he uses dabs of nitric acid.

Abu Mohammed has mended hundreds of bills for family and friends, saying he does not take a cut or provide the service to strangers. “They’re dear to me, so I do it for them,” he said.

To repair ripped bills, Abu Mohammed uses a needle to carefully spread a clear adhesive designed to fool wary shopkeepers.

“If the trader sees glue on the bill, he won’t take it,” he said. “I have a magical glue . . . When you see the bill you’d say: ‘It’s not glued together.’”

The cash crisis is so acute that Gaza’s authorities attempted to crack down during the truce, vowing to reduce the commission rate to 5 per cent.

But despite arrests, the campaign did little to curb profiteering and Israel’s latest offensive has forced police and ministry workers back into hiding, according to Ministry of Economy researcher Mohammed Barbakh.

With no end to the siege in sight, the broker said falling commercial activity inside Gaza means it has become increasingly difficult to secure hard currency — whatever the price.

“There’s no liquidity right now,” he said. “It is with great, great difficulty that we manage to get any cash at all.”

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