Gazans mark Valentine's Day with mixed emotions

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - For Palestinian flower growers in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, it was a holiday of love's labour's lost.

Unable to ship their blooms to Europe for Valentine's Day because of Israeli export restrictions, they dumped two truckloads of flowers at the Sufa border crossing with the Jewish state on Thursday and fed some of the crop to sheep.

"It is a black Valentine's Day," said grower Majed Hadayed, estimating his seasonal losses at $2.5 million (1.3 million pounds).

Israel tightened restrictions on the movement of Palestinians and goods through its frontier with the Gaza Strip after Hamas Islamists violently wrested control of the territory from President Mahmoud Abbas's secular Fatah faction in June.

Although many of the Gaza Strip's 1.5 million residents do not celebrate Valentine's Day, viewing it as a Western and Christian holiday, some stores displayed red flowers and heart-shaped gifts.

"I am selling teddy bears and hearts. Let the people entertain themselves a bit under the siege," shopkeeper Haitham Qalaja said, referring to the Israeli blockade.

Hamas security forces did not try to prevent the commerce or holiday meals at some Gaza restaurants.

Some Gazans said they viewed the "holiday of love" as a break from tensions with Israel amid fears that it will soon launch an invasion of the territory, where militants have been carrying out cross-border rocket attacks daily.