Israel pressured by UN and US to step up action to tackle Gaza’s escalating humanitarian crisis/node/2575602/middle-east
Israel pressured by UN and US to step up action to tackle Gaza’s escalating humanitarian crisis
Palestinian children queue to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 16, 2024. (REUTERS)
Israel pressured by UN and US to step up action to tackle Gaza’s escalating humanitarian crisis
Israel accused of blocking the delivery of desperately needed aid to Gaza
Updated 17 October 2024
AP
UNITED NATIONS: The top UN humanitarian official accused Israel on Wednesday of blocking the delivery of desperately needed aid to Gaza, and the US ambassador demanded that its government step up efforts to tackle the Palestinian territory’s ”intolerable and catastrophic humanitarian crisis.”
Acting humanitarian chief Joyce Msuya and US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield stepped up the pressure on Israel at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on the escalating humanitarian emergency, especially in northern Gaza.
The council meeting, called by Algeria, the Arab representative on the council, followed a US warning to Israel to boost aid efforts dramatically or risk losing funding for weapons from its main supplier. The Biden administration gave Israel 30 days to take a number of actions, including sending 350 trucks with food and other aid into Gaza every day.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon insisted that his country’s humanitarian efforts remain “as comprehensive as ever” and criticized the council for focusing on the humanitarian situation in Gaza while Israeli civilians “are being targeted daily by those who seek our destruction.”
He said Israel has delivered over 1 million tons of aid, including 700,000 tons of food, to Gaza since it launched its military operation after Hamas’ surprise attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Danon accused the international community of missing the real issue — which he said was Hamas’ hijacking of aid shipments while fellow Palestinians suffer.
“This makes it incredibly difficult to ensure that the aid reaches its intended recipients,” he said. But Israel remains committed to working with its partners to deliver aid, “even under these dangerous and morally reprehensible conditions.”
Msuya, the top UN aid official, painted a grim picture, telling the council that there is barely any food left in northern Gaza where an Israeli offensive is under way. No food entered the north from Oct. 2 to Oct. 15 “when a trickle was allowed in,” she said, and “most bakeries will be forced to shut down again in the next several days without additional fuel.”
Throughout Gaza, Msuya said, less than one-third of the 286 humanitarian missions coordinated with Israeli authorities in the first two weeks of October “were facilitated without major incidents or delays.”
The level of suffering in Gaza worsens every day, she said, as Israeli bombs continue to fall, fierce fighting continues, and “supplies essential for people’s survival and humanitarian assistance are blocked at every turn.”
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, accused Israel of besieging, bombing and starving 400,000 Palestinians in northern Gaza as part of its all-out war against the Palestinian people.
“These are crimes,” he said. “This is genocide. They must be stopped — and they must be stopped now.”
Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador, pointed to some new Israeli commitments since the US warning and two dozen trucks entering northern Gaza for the first time in several weeks.
But she said Israel’s progress since last week is “insufficient” and stressed that it must follow through on its commitments, including opening more border crossings and routes and taking steps “to help secure delivery routes against armed gangs involved in violent looting.”
“A `policy of starvation’ in northern Gaza would be horrific and unacceptable and would have implications under international law and US law,” the US ambassador warned. “The government of Israel has said that this is not their policy, that food and other essential supplies will not be cut off, and we will be watching to see that Israel’s actions on the ground match this commitment.”
At the council meeting, there were repeated calls by members for action by the UN’s most powerful body to end the more than yearlong war in Gaza.
Guyana’s UN Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues Birkett lamented that 47 Security Council meetings and four legally binding resolutions in the past year, including demands for a ceasefire, “have not had the expected results, and the situation in Gaza continues to worsen with each passing day.”
“We must not allow the shredding of the moral and legal thread that holds our organization together,” she said. “The most fundamental question then that this council faces is, what will we do to stop this tide?”
Thomas-Greenfield urged all council members to support the UN as it works with Israel to step up aid deliveries. She said the US focus in the coming months will be “getting humanitarian aid in, getting hostages out, and ending the conflict.”
Displaced families have headed back in droves, even to burned homes
Updated 11 March 2025
AFP
PORT SUDAN: Nearly 400,000 Sudanese have returned to their homes over the past two and a half months after being displaced by the ongoing conflict, the United Nations migration agency said on Monday.
Between December and March, “approximately 396,738 individuals” returned to areas retaken from paramilitary forces by the army, which has advanced through central Sudan in recent months, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been locked in a brutal conflict between army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
Nearly all the returnees moved back to their homes in the central Sudanese states of Sennar, which the army largely recaptured in December, and Al-Jazira after it was retaken the following month.
Thousands more have returned to the capital Khartoum, where the army regained large areas last month and appeared on the verge of expelling the RSF.
Displaced families have headed back in droves, even to looted and burned homes, after more than a year of displacement.
Across the country, 11.5 million people are internally displaced, many of them facing mass starvation in what the UN calls the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.
A further 3.5 million people have fled across borders since the war broke out.
Parts of the country have already descended into famine, with another 8 million people on the brink of mass starvation.
On Monday, the UN’s resident and humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, said only 6.3 percent of the funding necessary to provide lifesaving aid had been received.
Nationwide, nearly 25 million people are suffering dire food insecurity.
The conflict divided the country into two parts, with the army controlling the country’s north and east while the RSF holds nearly all Darfur and parts of the south.
A medical source said RSF shelling on Sunday on a strategic city in Sudan’s south killed nine civilians and injured 21 others.
El-Obeid, the state capital of North Kordofan, came under attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, said the source at the city’s main hospital and several witnesses.
Boatless in Gaza: using old fridge doors to catch fish
Israeli bombardment over more than 15 months of war has destroyed most of the boats in the harbor, wrecking the fishermen’s means of making a living
Updated 11 March 2025
AFP
GAZA CITY: Balanced calmly on top of what was once a refrigerator door, fisherman Khaled Habib uses a makeshift paddle to propel himself through the waters of Gaza City’s fishing port.
Israeli bombardment over more than 15 months of war has destroyed most of the boats in the harbor, wrecking the fishermen’s means of making a living.
“We’re in a very difficult situation today, and struggling with the fishing. There are no fishing boats left. They’ve all been destroyed and tossed on the ground,” said Habib.
“I made this ‘boat’ from refrigerator doors and cork — and thankfully it worked.”
So he could continue feeding his family, Habib came up with the idea of stuffing cork into old fridge doors to make them buoyant.
He covered one side with wood and the other with plastic sheeting to help make the makeshift paddleboard waterproof.
Habib also crafted a fishing cage out of wire because of the lack of nets but admitted that his resulting catch was “small.”
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said in December that the conflict had taken Gaza’s “once thriving fishing sector to the brink of collapse.”
“Gaza’s average daily catch between October 2023 to April 2024 dropped to just 7.3 percent of 2022 levels, causing a $17.5 million production loss,” the FAO said.
Habib now fishes mainly inside the small port area using dough as bait.
Despite the fragile ceasefire that came into force on Jan. 19, which essentially halted the fighting, Habib said that fishing outside the port is prohibited.
“If we go (outside the fishermen’s harbor), the Israeli boats will shoot at us, and that’s a problem we suffer from a lot.”
Habib said he catches enough fish to feed his family and tries to help others by selling the rest at an affordable price.
After dividing his catch into small plastic bags, the fisherman sells some at the high prices at the harbor market.
The first phase of the Gaza truce, which ended on March 1, had enabled the entry of vital food, shelter, and medical assistance into the Palestinian territory.
Israel announced on March 2 that it was blocking aid deliveries to Gaza, where Palestinians say they fear food shortages and price hikes.
Several other fishermen, particularly the younger generation, have also used the new makeshift floating platforms.
Habib sees the homemade paddleboards as having a dual purpose.
“If we wanted to raise a new generation to learn how to swim, boats should be made from refrigerator doors, and then everyone would learn how to swim, row, and sail,” he said.
“Thank God, now they’ve learned how to swim,” he added, looking over the water at children trying to keep their balance.
Israel’s halt to food and aid deliveries worsens Gaza conditions
Israel last week blocked the entry of goods into the territory in a standoff over a truce that has halted fighting for the past seven weeks
Underscoring the fragility of the ceasefire, an Israeli airstrike killed three Palestinians in the Bureij camp in central Gaza Strip, medics said
Updated 11 March 2025
Reuters
CAIRO: Israel’s suspension of goods entering Gaza is taking a toll on the Palestinian enclave, with some bakeries closing and food prices rising, while a cut in the electricity supply could deprive people of clean water, Palestinian officials said.
The suspension, which Israel said was aimed at pressuring militant group Hamas in ceasefire talks, applies to food, medicine and fuel imports.
The UN Palestinian refugees agency UNRWA said the decision to halt humanitarian aid threatens the lives of civilians exhausted by 17 months of “brutal” war. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people were dependent on aid, it said.
Hamas describes the measure as “collective punishment” and insisted it will not be pushed into making concessions.
A youth pushes a bicycle loaded with filled-up water containers outside the Southern Gaza Desalination plant, which stopped working after Israeli after cut off electricity supply to the Gaza Strip, in Deir el-Balah in the centre of the Palestinian territory on March 10, 2025. (AFP)
Abdel-Nasser Al-Ajrami, head of the Gaza bakers’ union, told Reuters that six out of the 22 bakeries still able to operate in the enclave had already shut after they ran out of cooking gas.
“The remaining bakeries may close down in a week or so should they run out of diesel or flour, unless the crossing is reopened to allow the goods to flow,” he said.
The bakeries were already unable to meet the needs of the people, he said.
Israel last week blocked the entry of goods into the territory in a standoff over a truce that has halted fighting for the past seven weeks. The move has led to a hike in prices of essential foods as well as of fuel, forcing many to ration their meals.
Displaced from her destroyed house and living in a tent in Khan Younis, 40-year-old Ghada Al-Rakab said she is struggling to secure basic needs. The mother of six bakes some goods for her family and neighbors, sometimes renting out a clay makeshift oven.
“What kind of life are we living? No electricity, no water, no life, we don’t even live a proper life. What else is left there in life? May God take us and give us rest,” Al-Rakab said.
’ENVIRONMENTAL AND HEALTH RISKS’
Israel’s onslaught on Gaza has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians since October 2023, according to Gaza health officials, left most of its people destitute and razed much of the territory to the ground.
The war was triggered by a Hamas-led cross-border raid into southern Israel in which militants killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
In Israel’s latest punitive measure, Energy Minister Eli Cohen said on Sunday he had instructed the Israel Electric Corporation not to sell electricity to Gaza in what he described as a means of pressure on Hamas to free hostages.
Israel already cut power supply to Gaza at the war’s start but this move would affect a wastewater treatment plant currently supplied with power, according to the Israeli electricity company.
The Palestinian Water Authority said the decision suspended operations at a water desalination plant that produced 18,000 cubic meters of water per day for the population in central and southern areas of Gaza Strip.
Mohammad Thabet, the spokesperson of the Gaza power distribution plant, told Reuters the decision will deprive people in those areas of clean and healthy water.
“The decision is catastrophic, municipalities now will be obliged to let sewage water stream into the sea, which may result in environmental and health risks that go beyond the boundaries of Gaza,” Thabet said.
All the aid supplies being distributed by the Palestine Red Crescent are dwindling and it is having to ration what remains, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies said.
“If it is possible to find the basics like eggs and chicken, the prices have rocketed and are out of reach for the majority of people in Gaza,” IFRC spokesperson Tommaso Della Longa said.
It is also concerned that a lack of medical supplies and medicines may impact the treatment of patients.
MEDIATORS TRY TO SALVAGE TRUCE
Fighting in Gaza has been halted since January 19 under a truce, and Hamas has exchanged 33 Israeli hostages and five Thais for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
But the truce’s initial 42-day stage has expired and Hamas and Israel remain far apart on broader issues including the postwar governance of Gaza and the future of Hamas itself.
Underscoring the fragility of the ceasefire, an Israeli airstrike killed three Palestinians in the Bureij camp in central Gaza Strip, medics said.
The Israeli military said the air force struck three individuals in Nuseirat, central Gaza, who were accused of trying to plant explosives. It also said soldiers shot at several militants in Gaza City who were also allegedly attempting to plant explosives.
Arab mediators, Egypt and Qatar, and the US are trying to salvage the ceasefire deal. They held talks with Hamas leaders and are set to receive Israeli negotiators in Doha on Monday.
Hamas spokesperson Abdel-Latif Al-Qanoua told Reuters on Monday the group was committed to the original phased agreement and expected mediators to “compel” Israel to begin talks on implementing the second stage. Phase two is intended to focus on agreements on the release of remaining hostages and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
Israel demands Hamas free the remaining hostages without beginning phase two negotiations.
How long can Israel’s policy of deliberate nuclear ambiguity hold?
Qatar’s call at IAEA for nuclear-free Middle East puts renewed pressure on Israel’s not-so-secret nuclear-weapons program
Regional tensions, shifting alliances raise fresh questions about Israel’s undeclared warhead stockpile and limits of deterrence
Updated 11 March 2025
Jonathan Gornall
LONDON: It was a moment that almost no one in the international community saw coming. On Saturday, during a routine meeting of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Qatar’s ambassador to Austria delivered a surprise statement that added a dramatic new dimension to the ongoing Gaza peace talks in Doha.
The State of Qatar, Jassim Yacoub Al-Hammadi announced, was calling for “intensified international efforts” to bring all Israeli nuclear facilities “under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and for Israel to join the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear state.”
The move, in the words of the director of the globally respected and independent Stockholm International Peace Institute (SIPRI), which has kept tabs on the world’s nuclear weapons and the states that possess them since 1966, “came out of a clear blue sky.”
There was no immediate response from Israel. But it seems certain that the Israeli delegation that was en route to Doha on Monday for a fresh round of talks, was taken surprise by a diplomatic ambush seemingly designed to introduce another bargaining chip into the negotiations.
Israel has never formally admitted possessing nuclear weapons, but its nuclear capability has been an open secret for decades.
According to SIPRI’s latest assessment, published last year in its 2024 Yearbook, by the start of last year nine states possessed approximately 12,121 nuclear weapons, of which more than 9,500 were considered available for immediate use — and Israel was most definitely one of those nine states.
Israel’s estimated stockpile of 90 warheads is not large, certainly not when compared with Russia’s 4,380 and America’s 3,708. If SIPRI’s carefully researched assessment is correct, only North Korea, with 50 warheads, has fewer nuclear weapons than Israel.
SIPRI’s assessment is that Israel has about 90 warheads, capable of being delivered anywhere within a maximum radius of 4,500 km by its F-15 and F-16I aircraft, its 50 land-based Jericho II and III missiles, and by about 20 Popeye Turbo cruise missiles launched from submarines.
But the size of Israel’s stockpile is irrelevant when set against the damage it could do, especially when its only likely target is Iran, which currently lacks the ability to retaliate — or to strike first — with nuclear weapons.
SIPRI concedes that, when it comes to Israel’s stockpile, “all figures are approximate and some are based on assessments by the authors.” Israel, it adds, “continues to maintain its longstanding policy of nuclear ambiguity, leaving significant uncertainty about the number and characteristics of its nuclear weapons.”
That ambiguity extends to Israel’s only official stated position on nuclear weapons, which it has repeated since the 1960s, that it “won’t be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.”
That, says SIPRI, is simply dissembling. Israeli policymakers, it says, “have previously interpreted ‘introduce nuclear weapons’ as publicly declaring, testing or actually using the nuclear capability, which Israel says it has not yet done.”
That, of course, raises the question of whether Israel’s nuclear weapons are home-grown or not. If not, the obvious supplier would be America.
But in 1979 reports emerged that a US satellite had detected the telltale double flash of a nuclear detonation over the Indian Ocean, roughly midway between Africa and Antarctica, raising the possibility that Israel had collaborated in a nuclear test with the apartheid-era South African government.
“Israel's nuclear capacity has always been a really quite strange phenomenon of Middle Eastern geopolitics,” said Dan Smith, Director of SIPRI.
“All five of the permanent members of the UN Security Council, each of which has nuclear weapons, are referred to in the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as the nuclear weapon states and so are bound by the Treaty.
“Outside of the treaty, Israel, Pakistan and India never signed up for it, and North Korea did sign up for it, but then withdrew before developing its nuclear weapons.
“So, the three states that are nuclear armed, but not part of the NPT, all make explicit that they have nuclear weapons, and of course this is the point of a deterrent.
“The idea is, ‘You may not know exactly what hell I will rain down upon you, but you know I will rain down hell.’
“But Israel has come up with something different. It’s clear that they do have nuclear weapons, but they have never formally acknowledged it and in Israel it is not talked about.”
Israel has never formally admitted possessing nuclear weapons, but its nuclear capability has been an open secret for decades. (AFP)
Israel has always taken extreme steps to protect its nuclear secrets.
“Israelis are scared,” said Ahron Bregman, a senior teaching fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London’s Institute of Middle East Studies, who served in the Israeli army for six years in the 1980s.
“Even if you believe it is a good idea to restrict Israel’s behavior and make sure it doesn’t do anything stupid, you are scared to act because you know they will abduct you and put you in jail. Israel is very tough on those who reveal its secrets.”
This was precisely the fate that befell Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear technician and peace activist, in 1986.
After Vanunu revealed details of Israel’s nuclear weapons program to a British newspaper, he was ensnared in the UK by a female Mossad agent posing as an American tourist. She persuaded him to accompany her to Rome, where he was kidnapped by other Mossad agents and spirited back to Israel on board an Israeli navy ship.
Vanunu was charged with treason and sentenced to 18 years in prison, much of which he spent in solitary confinement. Released in April 2004, he remains under a series of strictly enforced restrictions, which prevent him from leaving Israel or even speaking to any foreigner.
Mordechai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear technician and peace activist who revealed details of Israel’s nuclear weapons program to a British newspaper in 1986, was charged with treason and sentenced to 18 years in prison. (AFP)
“We all believe that Israel has a nuclear capability,” said Bregman. “The fact that it found it necessary to catch Vanunu and put him in jail, and continues to impose strict limitations on him, just proves that it has probably got it.”
In its annual report last June, SIPRI reported that Israel was upgrading its plutonium-production reactor at Dimona, and modernizing its nuclear arsenal.
Smith thinks that, in seeking to bring Israel’s nuclear capability into the open and have it subjected to international scrutiny, Qatar is pursuing an agenda backed by the wider region.
“Israel’s nuclear monopoly has always been a huge irritant in geopolitics in the region for every other power, and at the 2010 Non-Proliferation Review Conference (held at UN headquarters in New York) the state parties agreed on the notion of a Middle East nuclear-weapons-free zone.
“For the Arab states, that was a major issue. For the US and some of the Europeans it was just something to agree to in order to keep everybody happy. Nobody really seriously expected they were going to force Israel to give up the nuclear weapons that it hasn’t formally acknowledged.
“But Qatar, I think, is now expressing that urge to bring Israel into the framework of a non-nuclear Middle East.”
This is, he believes, likely to be a serious attempt to introduce the issue of Israel’s nuclear arsenal into the Gaza talks.
Plans to expand Israel’s desert city of Dimona, known as the cradle of the national nuclear program, are stoking fears among nearby Bedouin villagers for their traditional way of life. (AFP)
“I take Qatari foreign policy very seriously,” he said. “I don’t think that they are into gestures or grandstanding. They take seriously the idea which has been written into the Qatari constitution that they are a state with a mission to try to spread peace in their region and in the world.
“The shaky ceasefire in Gaza was a product of a huge amount of effort by Qatar, among others. It’s not the first time they have been able to play that kind of role, so they strongly see themselves in this kind of mediating, bridge-building role.
“I don’t know what their assessment is, how they calculate this as being a good time to launch this initiative. But I take it seriously because it’s them.”
Israel is believed to have twice come close to wielding, and perhaps actually using, its nuclear weaponry.
In 2017 a claim emerged that, on the eve of the Arab-Israeli war in 1967, Israel had been on the cusp of unleashing a “demonstration” nuclear blast designed to intimidate its enemies in the event that it appeared it might lose the war and be overrun.
The plan was revealed in interviews with retired general Itzhak Yaakov, conducted by Avner Cohen, an Israeli American historian and leading scholar of Israel’s nuclear history, and published only after Yaakov’s death.
Israel is believed to have twice come close to wielding, and perhaps actually using, its nuclear weaponry. (AFP)
It was not the last time Israel reportedly came close to bringing nuclear disaster to the region. In 2003 Cohen revealed that during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when it appeared that Israeli forces were about to be overrun, then Prime Minister Golda Meir had authorized the use of nuclear bombs and missiles as a last-stand defense.
This doomsday plan, codenamed Samson, was named after the biblical strongman who, while captured by the Philistines, pulled down their temple’s pillars, killing himself and his enemies. And the shadow of an Israeli-triggered nuclear calamity continues to haunt the region.
In its 2024 report SIPRI noted that in the wake of the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 “several Israeli policymakers and commentators — including a minister who was later suspended from the cabinet — suggested that Israel should use nuclear weapons against Hamas fighters in Gaza.”
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), a coalition of non-governmental organisations in 100 countries that promotes implementation of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, welcomed Qatar’s initiative.
Qatar called for “intensified international efforts” to bring all Israeli nuclear facilities “under the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and for Israel to join the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear state.” (AFP)
“As Israel’s nuclear arsenal is an open secret, it is long past time that its nuclear facilities are subject to international safeguards,” said Susi Snyder, ICAN’s Program Coordinator.
“Joining the NPT should be a first step followed by Israel and other countries in the region joining the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and the proposed Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction.
“Eliminating Israel’s nuclear weapons and ensuring that no other state in the Middle East ever acquires such weapons will be vital for the long-term security of all people in the region.
“Without disarmament, true peace will remain elusive.”
‘Got cash?’ Tunisians grapple with new restrictions on cheques
Consumers are under even more pressure during the current Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan
Once a crucial pillar of Tunisia’s economic and social stability, the middle class made up around 60 percent of the population before the country’s 2011 revolution
Updated 11 March 2025
AFP
TUNIS: Olfa Meriah stands, frustrated, before a smartphone shop near the capital Tunis. How can she buy a phone in instalments, she wonders, when a new banking reform has made split payments nearly impossible?
In Tunisia, where the average monthly salary hovers just around 1,000 dinars ($320), people have long relied on post-dated cheques to make purchases by paying in increments over months.
Unlike many other countries where cheques are now rarely seen in the era of instant online payments, the culture of paying by cheque persists in Tunisia.
But as part of banking reforms introduced in February the government seeks to reinforce the original role of cheques as a means of immediate payment. Cheques had effectively become a form of credit often tolerated by merchants.
Unlike debit cards, credit cards are not widely available in the north African country.
The new law officially aims at “curbing consumer debt” and “improving the business climate” in an economy whose real GDP growth, according to the International Monetary Fund, is projected at just 1.6 percent for 2025.
But many feel it has also begun disrupting household budgets and small businesses.
Ridha Chkoundali, a university professor and economist, said the new law “could be the last straw” for consumption and economic growth.
He said the measure upsets Tunisians’ customary consumer behavior, with mainly the middle class bearing its brunt.
“Since it came out, I’ve been searching for ways to pay for a smartphone over several months without it eating away my salary,” said Meriah, 43. “But the new cheques don’t allow that.”
Once a crucial pillar of Tunisia’s economic and social stability, the middle class made up around 60 percent of the population before the country’s 2011 revolution.
Experts now estimate it has fallen by more than half to 25 percent.
Leila, the owner of the smartphone shop in the Tunis-area district of Ariana, told AFP her sales have fallen by more than half, after she started taking cash only.
“No one buys anything anymore,” said Leila, who didn’t give her last name. “We didn’t understand the law because it’s complicated and we don’t trust it. We decided not to accept cheques anymore.”
“Got cash? Welcome. If not, I’m sorry,” she summed up.
Consumers are under even more pressure during the current Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.
Tunisians tend to buy more during Ramadan, stocking up on food and sweets as families gather for collective meals before and after their daytime fasting.
And as Eid Al-Fitr — the holiday marking the end of Ramadan — approaches at the end of March, shopping for clothes and gifts rises.
Many merchants had already grown reluctant to deal with cheques when the previous finance law ordered harsh prison sentences for cheque kiting — the fraudulent practice of issuing cheques with non-existent funds.
Last April, judicial authorities said they were investigating more than 11,000 bad-cheque cases.
This year’s reform is meant to reduce those cases. Based on the buyer’s income and assets, it has introduced a cap on the amount that cheques can be written for.
It also allows the merchant to check if the payer has enough funds upon each transaction by scanning a QR code on their cheque.
Many feel the measure is intrusive, and the technological shift already adds a level of complexity.
Badreddine Daboussi, who owns one of Tunis’s oldest bookstores told AFP the change has crippled his sales, adding to an already waning demand for books.
“Before, customers paid with post-dated cheques, but now they can’t, and the new online tool is complicated and unreliable.”
“They just can’t buy books anymore,” he added, noting he had even considered closing up shop.
Tunisia, a country of more than 12 million people, has long suffered sporadic shortages of basic items such as milk, sugar and flour.
Its national debt has risen to around 80 percent of GDP and inflation is at six percent, according to official figures.
Hamza Meddeb, a research fellow at the Malcolm H Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, wrote in October that President Kais Saied — who rejected IMF reforms — has engaged in “economic improvization” with “heavy reliance on domestic debt.”
Chkoundali, the other analyst, warned of “another recession.”
“As consumption shrinks, the already little economic growth we have will also decline,” he said.
Unemployment is already at 16 percent nationwide, according to official figures.
Feeble consumption would help push that figure even higher, Chkoundali explained, with workers risking significant layoffs as profits dwindle.
