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GAZA-When Hassan Amin al-Bana gingerly steps on the gas pedal of his bright yellow taxi, a strange smell wafts from the exhaust: deep-fried fast food.Faced with chronic fuel shortages due to an Israeli blockade and a strike by Palestinian distributors protesting supply caps, taxi drivers in the Gaza Strip are filling their tanks with cooking oil, often scrounging leftover fat from street vendors."It's not like driving with diesel-it takes time to get it going in the morning," said Bana, 40, at Gaza City's main taxi stand. "I know it's bad for my car, but I have to pay for food for my kids so what can I do?"The pumps at Gaza's petrol stations have been deserted for several weeks but brightly-colored cartons of soya bean cooking oil, some smuggled from Egypt, are piled high at the taxi rank in the impoverished territory's main city.The drivers say they mix the oil with turpentine before filling up. Used oil is better than the fresh stuff so they often beg or buy leftovers from street vendors who sell falafel-a fried chick-pea snack popular in the Middle East.Vendors are doing a brisk trade."I set up the stall last week when I saw taxi drivers had started putting cooking oil in their cars," said Yehya Karam, 21, as he stacked cartons of oil alongside waiting taxis. "I sell about 70 cartons a day-I'd say most of the taxi drivers still on the streets are powering their cars this way."To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah....
