So much for the bargain bucket: Delivery firm smuggles KFC chicken into Gaza through secret tunnels from Egypt but at three times the normal cost

Consignments of chicken are smuggled by hand through the illegal supply tunnels beneath the border with Egypt

Delivery men face a number of obstacles and dangers, including Hamas inspections, unreliable taxis and the threat of Israeli air strikes

Tens of thousands marched today in Gaza to commemorate their expulsion from their homes during the creation of Israel in 1948



Fried chicken fans in the Gaza strip have been thrown a lifeline by a delivery company which is smuggling KFC though secret supply tunnels.

The Al-Yamama company is running consignments of the Colonel's secret recipe, carried by hand through a network of tunnels under the border with Egypt .

But buckets of legs, wings and breasts are not such a bargain in the occupied Palestinian territories: it comes at three times the normal cost.

Taste of freedom: A deliveryman carries bags of KFC food through an underground tunnel beneath the Gaza-Egypt border

Secret recipe: Portions of KFC fried chicken are now being smuggled into Gaza thanks to an enterprising delivery company

While a family meal costs around £80 Egyptian pounds ($11 U.S.) from the el-Arish KFC restaurant in the Egyptian North Sinai, the price of getting it into Gaza is a further 100 Israeli Shekels ($30).

The delivery company says the higher price is due to the transportation and smuggling fees.

Al-Yamama company accountant Mohammed Al-Madani explained the delivery men face a series of obstacles in bringing the food to Gaza.

These include Hamas security men inspecting the boxes, an unreliable taxi service on the Egyptian side, and the possibility the Israel might send warplanes to bomb the tunnels.

But it seems there is no shortage of punters eager to get their hands on the unique blend of 11 herbs and spices.

Luxury: While the price of a KFC family meal is about $11 in Egypt, getting it in Gaza costs a further $30

Demand: Since late last month, Al-Yamama has made four KFC to Palestinians

Mr Al-Madanisaid explained how the business started by chance.

'We ordered and arranged to bring some meals for us and they arrive after four hours,' he said.

The company then posted a picture of the fast food on their website, and soon the orders began flooding in.

Since offering the service the late last month, they have made four deliveries of KFC food, each consisting of around two dozen meals.

Aboud Fares, a 22- year-old student, told the Xinhua news agency: 'It's delicious even as it's not hot.'

Fast food deliveries are just one the 1.7million residents of Gaza can keep their spirits up under an occupation which has turned it, in the words of the UN's humanitarian chief, into 'a large open-air prison'.

Today tens of thousands in the territory marked the 65th anniversary of their mass displacement in the war over Israel's 1948 creation, holding rallies to commemorate the 'nakba,' or 'catastrophe'.

That's the term they use to describe the displacement, when three-quarters of a million Palestinians fled the fighting or were expelled from their homes by advancing soldiers.



A Palestinian flag is unfurled in the Nakba Day rally in Gaza City: They are marking what to them is the Nakba - Arabic for 'catastrophe' - of the 1948 creation of Israel and expulsion of 760,000 Palestinians from their homes

Children of Gaza at a Nakba Day rally: In the strip around a thousand marched to the U.N. headquarters in Gaza City, where the demonstrators chanted: 'We shall return. We will never give up or compromise over our land'

In Gaza, around a thousand people marched to the U.N. headquarters in Gaza City, where the demonstrators chanted: 'We shall return. We will never give up or compromise over our land.'

The dispute over the fate of those Palestinians and their descendants, now numbering several million people, remains at the core of the Arab-Israeli conflict.



Israel views the Palestinians' return as demographic suicide and expects the displaced and their descendants to be taken in by a future Palestinian state, but negotiations to create one have led nowhere.



