The economic experience of the Hamas government under blockade in the Gaza Strip[L’expérience économique du gouvernement Hamas sous blocus dans la bande de Gaza]

The blockade of the Gaza Strip and the successive wars conducted by Israel over the course of the past decade have given rise to severe economic and humanitarian crisis in this portion of Palestinian territory. To that is added the context produced by the internal political split between Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. This article examines certain unprecedented practices and policies of the Gaza government under blockade that offer insight in to the eminently conflictual and necessarily precarious nature of efforts to adapt, secure autonomy for and regulate economic activity in wartime. It focuses on three experiences in particular: the efforts undertaken by the Ministry of Agriculture to develop production in a situation of autarchy; recourse to smuggling networks and the use of tunnels at the border with Egypt; the effort to establish a parallel administrative and financial system in a context of shared sovereignty.