Saudi authorities seized 140 kilos of persimmons from Israel at a local market near the border with Jordan, local media reported.
Israeli Persimmons found in Saudi Arabia. – Photo: Courtesy
The fruit had Israeli stickers on it and was found in the city of Qurayyat, in northern Saudi Arabia.
The head of the municipality environment health department, Abdulaziz Al-Masaed, said that authorities acted on information that Israeli fruit was being sold in the market.
“The municipality team conducted a surprise inspection after the closing hours of the fruit market and confiscated the fruit boxes that originated from Israel,” he said, according to a report in the Saudi Gazette.
Masaed also said that the Ministry of Commerce and Industry was notified and the head of the municipality said he does not know how the fruit could have entered the country as its origin was marked.
A source in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said that an investigation is under way, noted the report.
The Arab League boycott of Israel, in place since 1948, is maintained by the Central Boycott Office in Damascus.
However, its enforcement varies across the Arab world.
In an article last year in Middle East Economy, Yitzchak Gal, from Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, wrote that “Israel’s exports to Middle Eastern markets in 2011 are estimated at over $6 billion, about 13 percent of overall Israeli exports.”
View original Jerusalem Post publication at: http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Israeli-fruit-seized-from-Saudi-market-345138
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