The commute is hellish, the pay meager, but both sides seem to agree that improving the bottomed-out Palestinian economy could help defuse at least part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
At the simple cinder-block house where Jamal al-Ghouf, 44, lives with his wife and 13 children, he stayed up all night to be among the first in line when the border opened.
At 3:45 a.m., after a breakfast of hummus, tea and jam, Ghouf, a bearish man with a thick moustache, paid his 55-cent share in the seven-seat taxi that took him to the heavily guarded Erez Checkpoint separating Israel from the Gaza Strip. In the dark chill, he entered a half-mile-long chute teeming with restless men for a security check that took two hours because of the crowd and included passing through a metal detector. The men were permitted to carry nothing except their identity cards and a small amount of food, but as most are observant Muslims, they will fast from dawn to dusk for the holy month of Ramadan.
Ghouf's Israeli employer, a building contractor, needed Ghouf in Be'er Sheva to plaster walls. After crossing into Israel, Ghouf paid $2.22 to the private bus driver who took him to the Negev Desert city.
Eight hours later, covered in plaster dust, with fresh scrapes on the back of his hands, Ghouf returned to Gaza before sundown as required.
After expenses, he had earned just $21.11 but considered himself a lucky man.
"The truth is," he said, "when they open Erez I am happy. When they close it I am angry. I appreciate the chance to work. . . . If the border stays open, we will eat better. We will wear better," he said, sharing his hope to buy new outfits for his children for the Eid al-Fitr feast at the end of Ramadan.
