Until the flotilla fiasco, the blockade of Gaza was not a matter of great concern to the Israeli public. And Thursday's decision by Israel's government to loosen its grip on the flow of goods into the territory — vague on specifics and heavy on conspicuous intent — was aimed squarely at a world watching from beyond missile range. "Look, I come from a kibbutz that's very close to Gaza," says Ran, a 40-year-old in Tel Aviv. "I go there to visit, and it's not nice."
The agricultural collective he comes from, called Nirim, grows organic peanuts and sweet potatoes in fields that run right up to the barrier that encloses 1.5 million Palestinians within Gaza. From the northern tip of the enclosure, an area of trash-strewn lots, militants scramble across to launch homemade rockets, then scramble off before Israeli artillery homes in on the launch coordinates. The rockets do not travel far, but they can reach Nirim. In March, shrapnel killed a Thai man working in a field there.
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