Mohammad Nabil, a 28-year-old manager of his Ramallah family's agricultural products store, was able to sleep in on this early February morning. Instead of having to wake up at 3 a.m. to go to the West Jerusalem products market to sample and buy various fruits and vegetables and load them up on trucks that have official import permits from the Palestinian government, he had to do something else this morning.

He woke up at 6 a.m. and instead of going by truck, he and his nephew took their private car and drove to a designated location near the Palestinian town of al-Ram where they met with the driver of a truck carrying Israeli produce.

Some 12 cases of mushrooms, six cases of lettuce, and four cases of asparagus were quickly transferred from the Israeli truck to the two private cars. The exchange took five minutes and soon Nabil and his nephew were on their way to Um al Sharit, which is a Palestinian town that technically belongs to the Jerusalem municipality, that is, outside the reach of the Palestinian authorities but beyond the security wall and the Israeli Qalandia checkpoint.

Nabil unloaded the products at a private garage waiting for nighttime to transfer them to the family store. “The Palestinian customs’ officials are all deployed now at the entrance of Ramallah. But after dark, they will be gone and we can bring the products to the store,” Nabil told Al-Monitor.