Grand Mufti of Khan Yunis, Sheikh Ihsan Ibrahim Ashour, the senior Islamic cleric in the city of Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip issued a religious order, or fatwa, banning Palestinian Muslims from trading flour for bread at local bakeries.
Palestinian women traditionally bake their own bread at home, and food aid given out in the Gaza strip often comes in the form of flour so that it can be baked into bread. The Gaza strip, however, has been suffering from a prolonged power crisis since 2017 when the Palestinian authority, seeking to deprive its enemy Hamas of electricity, stopped paying for electricity to the Gaza Strip from Israel.
The unreliability of power has led to many Palestinians trading flour that they receive as aid to local bakeries who bake it for them into bread.
Sheikh Ihsan issued the order banning this trade, as he believes that the practice constitutes “usury” which is banned under Islamic law.
After significant public backlash the Fatwa Department of the Islamic University of Gaza issued its own Fatwa declaring the practice legal and pushing back against the Grand Mufti’s ruling.
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