GAZA, July 20 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of people entered the Al- Andalusya mall in Gaza City after the automatic sliding door opened, looking up at the ceiling where cool air came from and then down at their feet trying carefully to stand on the escalator.
The people fanned out across the supermarket and the clothes store in the first and second floors of the shopping center. The third story is designated to have a restaurant, cafe shop, children cinema and a video games corner, but it is not yet ready.
Calling it a mall might be possible in Gaza, but it is too exaggerated when comparing it to some major shopping centers in nearby Egypt for example. It has no underground parking, and it is good to visit only when you want to buy clothes and food.
But for the owners of the enterprise, a group of private investors, this project challenges Israel's blockade that has been imposed in the Gaza Strip since 2007. Cutting the opening ribbon, Alaa Al-Rafati, Hamas minister of economy, also praised this as an example of resilience people have shown in the face of the closure.
It would have been difficult to open this place without the amendments Israel applied on its policies towards Gaza last summer, when it lifted the ban on most of consumer products following a wave of international criticism of the siege.
Most of the goods on the supermarket's shelves are imported through Israel. Food products are made either in Israel or the West Bank. However, a bit of commodities had come through smuggling tunnels beneath Gaza's southern border with Egypt.
Last summer, a smaller mall was opened here and Israel's defenders used it to show the world that the sanctions on Hamas do not have an effect on people, but those defenders neglected some important facts that the Gaza Mall had been nestled in a 20-year- old structure and that the products there mostly come through the tunnels.
The Al-Andalusya mall occupies three of an eight-story building. This project is finished in a critical situation in Gaza, as the West Bank-based Palestinian National Authority is suffering a severe financial crisis that forced it to pay half salary for its nearly 75,000 employees in Gaza.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which takes care of some 9,000 refugees out of the 1.5 million residents in Gaza, has also suspended some emergency relief and aid programs for lack of funds.
Ihab Al-Eissawi, the manager of Al-Andalusya mall, said that their prices would be less than other markets and will regularly put products on sale.
People filled the mall of 1,000 square meters, with families shopping in the supermarket and the youth were curiously looking for clothes that they saw the international trademarks on the exterior walls of the building. "They have really nice wears here but they are not brands," Ola Sultan said.
Yasser Hamada is a 27-year-old father working in Gaza's Hamas government. He was with his wife buying clothes for his two small daughters. "The prices are good," Hamada said. "We come to see the mall and we like some clothes."
Hamed Jad, an economic journalist, took a different view on this project. "This could be a step to boost one of the blockade's worst affects," he said, pointing at shirts.
"Most of the products here are imported and being sold at the expense of our local production," he said. In order to be a real challenge of the closure, a mall should be allocated to display the products of Gaza that have regional reputation such as furniture and clothes.
Shortly after the opening, a blackout dominated the scene for one minute, in a reminder of Gaza's ongoing problems with irregular electricity on the top.
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