The KFC smugglers of Gaza
People are paying a fortune to have fast-food chicken brought in from Egypt in underground tunnels. But local food-stall owners aren't happy about it
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Gaza is not always what people think. You want a lion? An Egyptian bride in a wedding dress? Viagra? An SUV, a double-door fridge freezer that dispenses perfect ice cubes, cigarettes, guns, Belgian chocolate? No problem. Now, as well as the above, the black market tunnels between Gaza and Egypt are bringing KFC deliveries, although the door-to-door service of around four hours makes it possibly the slowest fast-food around.
The service, according to the New York Times, requires first placing an international telephone order, making a payment by wire transfer, an Egyptian taxi driver to pick up the food from a franchise in El-Arish in the Sinai, couriers to bring it through the half-mile tunnels, a Gazan taxi driver to deliver it from the southern Gaza border to the northern Gaza office of the entrepreneur behind the scheme, and a fleet of motorbikes to take the chicken and chips – by now, presumably cold and limp – to their final destination.
And it doesn't come cheap: a bucket of 12 pieces of chicken plus chips costs around $27. Enough people in Gaza appear to think it's worth the cost and the wait to make Khalil Efrangi's venture a cautious success. In recent weeks he has delivered around 100 meals (orders are restricted to chicken, chips, coleslaw and apple pie), making a $6 profit on each.
But another Palestinian businessman, who owns some KFC and Pizza Hut franchises in the West Bank, is planning to open a restaurant within the walls and fences that surround the Gaza Strip, and a second application has been made for a KFC franchise in the tiny and crowded coastal territory.
Should McDonalds' golden arches or the pert goatee and red apron of KFC's Colonel Sanders become as ubiquitous in Gaza and the West Bank as they are in so much of the world, the impact could be disastrous for family-run street stalls and cafes offering local fast food: falafel, hummus and shawarma. A freshly baked pitta bread stuffed with crisp, fragrant fried balls of a chickpea and herb mixture, hummus, tahini, salads, pickles and chilli sauce can be bought for three shekels (50p).
Back to the tunnels. In their heyday, Rafah, a town butting up against Gaza's border with Egypt, was the wild west of Palestine, with hundreds of underground passages snaking below the frontier, up to 50,000 Palestinians employed in construction and smuggling, and vast fortunes being made by black marketeers. "Just give me a shopping list of anything – literally anything – you want, and it will be here in two days," one tunnel owner told me a few years back. Nearly all of the animals at Gaza's South Forest zoo, including hyenas, wolves, ostriches, chimpanzees and its prize lion, came though the tunnels. Two months ago, 17-year-old Egyptian bride Manal Abu Shanar, veiled and dressed in flowing white, made the subterranean journey to her wedding in Gaza.
But the easing of the Israeli blockade since 2010 and an offensive against the tunnels by the Egyptian army – blowing them up – have had an impact. "The really good times are over," one smuggler told me last year. "But we'll find something else."
