I told my friend JB earlier how I get access in Gaza to the money from my fundraising campaign.

[mohshbair@mastodon.social]

@katzenberger
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[katzenberger@tldr.nettime.org]

@mohshbair

I see. Thank you for replying. So if I understood correctly, people transfer money to the accounts of owners of an "exchange office", and the offices hand out the money, withholding an arbitrary amount of "fees"?

[mohshbair@mastodon.social]

@katzenberger Yes, exactly.

If you send me 10 USD, the exchange office will give me cash, but with a big fee: usually I get only 4 or 5 USD in cash out of the initial 10.
That’s how people here turn digital money into cash, it’s not perfect, but it’s what we have.

[katzenberger@tldr.nettime.org]

@mohshbair

One last question: in the past, I had been told that also merchants act as such "exchange offices". Was that correct, or are merchants and "exchange offices" usually different people?

[mohshbair@mastodon.social]

@katzenberger Yes, that is correct. In many cases, merchants in Gaza do act like exchange offices too.

[mohshbair@mastodon.social]

@katzenberger Then the goods arrive in Gaza, and the merchant sells them for cash. Let’s say he earns 20 million shekels in cash now he has a lot of physical money.

[mohshbair@mastodon.social]

@katzenberger The merchant in Gaza buys these goods for millions of shekels like 5 or 10 million. But because of the war, they can’t travel to the West Bank to pay in person, so they transfer digital balance to the supplier’s bank account.

[mohshbair@mastodon.social]

@katzenberger Let me explain: some well-known merchants in Gaza receive truck shipments through the Kerem Shalom crossing. Things like sugar, fruits, vegetables, cleaning supplies, coffee, etc. These goods usually come from the West Bank or even from Israel.

[mohshbair@mastodon.social]

@katzenberger So yes, in Gaza, big merchants and exchange offices often work in the same way or even are the same people. It’s all one big cycle to keep things moving.

[mohshbair@mastodon.social]

@katzenberger Later, the same merchant sells that cash to people and offices. People pay him in balance, and he gives them cash so he can use that balance again to buy new goods.

[subtypes@hachyderm.io]

@mohshbair 15% fee, that's criminal 😣

[mohshbair@mastodon.social]

@subtypes I keep hearing stories about PayPal closing Palestinian accounts and confiscating their funds. I don't know if this is true, but I'm not taking any chances, which is why I no longer use PayPal.

[izzaboo@tilde.zone]

@mohshbair @katzenberger I wonder how a fellow could become an “exchange office” and undercut those charging very high fees

[mohshbair@mastodon.social]

@izzaboo @katzenberger It would take the trust of your customers, a very very large quantity of Israeli shekel in cash, and the ability to do something out of PayPal money or USDT money or IBAN money, either in the West Bank, in Israel or in Egypt.

[izzaboo@tilde.zone]

@mohshbair @katzenberger Thank you for your reply! Ideas rolling around in my head about non-profit orgs being exchange offices somehow, with international resources. Surely there must be reasons it isn’t happening already. Or it is and I am unaware. It is all so far outside my world I probably have too much to learn.

There is something extra painful about such high fees, although surely money exchangers in Gaza need to survive too.

I budgeted a little money in my next paycheck to send to people who’ve asked on here. I wish more of it would get to where I will send it.

[mohshbair@mastodon.social]

@izzaboo @katzenberger They barely let any aid in. No food. No medicine. Only soldiers and bombs and explosive robots. And they arm gangs and militias.

Most international banks comply with the blockade imposed by the occupation, and they block IBAN transfers to Palestine. The cash crisis is intentional.