Life is often stranger than fiction: The Gaza Strip, which Israel has blockaded for the last 14 years and attacked in four brutal wars, is providing its occupier with protective masks and other life-saving equipment.

Closed for many years, the Unipal clothing factory reopened in 2015, but was able to keep about 100 workers busy for five to seven days a month. Now, the Unipal factory in central Gaza City is all “hustle and bustle” once again. Sounds of sewing machines fill the building for 12 hours every day, with about 700 employees laboring to protect lives—ironically, mostly in Israel.

Crisis for some, business opportunity for others

At the time of this writing, Israel had identified 9,404 infections and 73 deaths from COVID-19, while the Palestinian Authority confirmed 263 persons who tested positive for the virus, including 12 in Gaza, and one death. Globally, the numbers are 1.5 million and 88,500, respectively.

Protective face masks and clothing are in shortage everywhere, with the Strip one of the few areas of the world not yet heavily impacted. Thus, Israel is allowing raw material to enter Gaza for production of masks and isolation suits.

Gaza factory Unipal now is producing thousands of masks and other medical clothing items daily and is exporting them through Erez Crossing. To date, says Unipal owner Bashir Al-Bawab, about 20,000 masks and 2,000 isolation suits have been sold to Israel. The factory produces two types of masks: simple, disposable masks that cover the face and chin that can be used for a few hours, and higher-quality masks (similar to the N95 respirator masks needed by healthcare workers).

Al-Bawab told Al Jazeera, "For now, Israel has not placed restrictions on the import of raw materials for this or the exports." He says the company can make 10,000 masks a day and has so far produced a total of 150,000 masks and 5,000 gowns/isolation suits. Unipal currently has contracts to make 1 million masks and 50,000 suits by the end of April.  

However, there are challenges. Al-Bawab says, “We get only 8 to 12 hours of electricity per day, and sometimes the blackout happens during our work hours.” As a result, Unipal is forced to pay for private generators. However, that comes at great cost. Government-supplied electricity costs 0.6 shekels per kilowatt, compared to as high as 4 shekels per kw when a private generator is used.

“We have no other option but to pay a large percent of our earnings to cover the costs of electricity,” he says. “If we stopped doing that, our work would collapse and hundreds of people would lose their jobs. And that’s the only income they have to feed their families.”

Gaza’s clothing legacy

The manufacture of clothing used to be a major industry in Gaza. However, the General Union of Sewing, Spinning and Weaving Workers in Gaza reports that more than 100 sewing, spinning and weaving factories have closed since Israel imposed its blockade in 2007—depriving more than 20,000 employees of jobs. The closures were primarily due to the shortage and high costs of fuel and electricity and the low quality of fabrics allowed into the Strip.

Union president Mohamed Hamdan says that between 2009 and 2014, quality fabrics were smuggled into Gaza via tunnels from Egypt, allowing some of the sewing factories to reopen. However, then Abdal Fattah el-Sisi, a former army chief, took power in Egypt and the tunnels were largely destroyed.

Dependence on China

Meanwhile imports from China—on which Gaza depended—stopped almost completely after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. These primarily included fabrics, phones and accessories, personal computers, games, clothes and cosmetics.

Rajaei Al-Kahlout, director of a transport and customs clearance company in the Gaza Strip, estimates that imports from China stopped completely at the beginning of February. Al-Kahlout told Al-Jazeera Arabic Network that more than 90% of the goods in the Gaza Strip are imported from China.

According to Hamdan, clothing factories in Gaza were reduced to operating at about 20% of their capacity as a result. However, Gaza’s large, “captive” pool of low-wage workers who are not yet heavily affected by the disease attracted Israeli companies, who began to pressure the government to allow large quantities of fabrics to enter Gaza so the factories there can make the medical supplies needed by the deteriorating health sector in Israel.

“Without the high demand of the Israeli market, Israel would have never allowed us to continue working,” notes one of the Gaza workers.