Donkey prices in Gaza surge to $30,000

The price of a donkey in Gaza has jumped from about $US1000 before the war to $US30,000 ($43,000) today, says one of the embattled enclave’s most senior veterinarians.

The surge in the value of the pack animals is due to the virtual elimination of motorised private transport in the strip and the emergence of a small group of black marketeers who have become hugely rich trading in intercepted aid.

The donkeys, whose number has been halved in the past three years, are also now in comparatively short supply.

“It’s a little bit crazy and people keep asking me, ‘Are you sure about that number?’ ” Dr Ahmed Thabet, a Gazan veterinary surgeon, told the London Telegraph.

“They say, ‘Do you mean $US3000?’ but I tell them, ‘No.’ The average price of a donkey before the war was between $US1000 and $US1200. Recently, it was $US20,000 and last week I witnessed one that was sold for $US30,000.”

The pricing was confirmed by a second Gaza source, who said the price of horses, donkeys and mules varied according to their condition.

“A strong, healthy donkey costs between 60,000 to 70,000 shekels – roughly $US19,000 to $US23,000. A horse goes for 80,000 to 90,000 shekels, while a good mule currently fetches around 110,000 shekels, said Abu Sanad Alsawarkah, an animal trader.

“Two weeks ago, I bought a female donkey and her one-month-old foal for 80,000 shekels, and sold them for a small profit. Prices change from week to week.”

Thabet said the price made sense in the context of a war in which even basic car parts were nearly impossible to come by and a litre of motor oil costs up to $US1000.

“This makes having a working animal an advantage”, he said. “They move everything … rubble, trash, family possessions … you can get a good amount of profit from it,” he said.

Others note that a huge number of donkeys had died during the war because there wasn’t enough feed.

Livestock owners were forced to use unsuitable substitutes such as raw lentils and uncooked rice, which often proved fatal.

On top of that, hundreds of donkeys were killed by live ordnance.

Almost a year into a ceasefire brokered by US President Donald Trump, Gaza remains a humanitarian disaster. Around 1500 Gazans have been killed by Israeli fire since the ceasefire began, according to local health authorities – on top of the 73,000 estimated Palestinians killed during the war.

Thabet, who has lived in Gaza with his wife and three children since returning in 2017 from Jordan and Germany where he did his training, now runs a dedicated veterinary service for working animals in Gaza funded by the British charity Safe Haven for Donkeys.

Thabet said a small number of people had become “unbelievably rich” by intercepting and then reselling food and other goods in the period before the ceasefire.

“Despite increased commercial and humanitarian truck arrivals in June and July, market access remains challenging for most households, with three-quarters reporting difficulties accessing markets, mainly due to cash shortages and the high cost of basic food items,” a report by the World Food Program reported in August.

Thabet said the surviving donkeys and other equines in Gaza were being well-fed but worked extremely hard.

Lesions and sores created by leads and harnesses were the most common injuries and they were proving difficult to treat due to a shortage of veterinary instruments and drugs.

Many animals were also suffering from painful musculoskeletal conditions, dental problems, gastrointestinal complaints and hoof-related problems, he said.

One of the main veterinary hospitals in Gaza, the Thabet Centre for Veterinary Science, was bombed and reduced to rubble during the war, with almost all its supplies destroyed.

Thabet and his team of two other vets and a veterinary assistant, now work from the bombed-out remnants of the building.

“We have only a few instruments that we rescued and very limited medicines, but we do the best we can,” he told The Telegraph.

He added that the charity refused to buy medicines and other products from the black market to avoid fuelling the inflation hammering the economy.

Instead, it is pushing for the release into Gaza of two large consignments of veterinary medicines and equipment.

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