KARNI CROSSING: "I'll bet some of it is melting by now." Palestinian truck driver Majd al-Wahdiya was weary. He had waited for hours for word that his ice creams had passed elaborate security checks at an Israeli border crossing point that dictates the fortunes of businesses exporting from the Gaza Strip.

"One more loss my firm can't afford," said al-Wahdiya, one of hundreds of truckers who daily unload goods onto conveyors that take them through holes in a concrete wall so they can be reloaded on Israeli trucks at the Karni crossing.

Israel blames the delays on the need to stop infiltrations by Palestinian militants like the two suicide bombers who sneaked through Karni in a container last March and killed 10 people.

Karni's concrete divide typifies the cordon expected to stretch tight around Gaza even if Israel completes an evacuation of settlers from the occupied territory under a plan to "disengage" from conflict with the Palestinians by 2005.

A continuation of such border constraints would likely spell death for any hopes that Gaza might bloom into a peaceful, prosperous proving ground for a Palestinian state.

In a report last month the World Bank said the windfall of land from "disengagement" could prove worthless and Palestinian authority descending into chaos unless Gaza could trade freely with Israel and beyond.

Some see unrest in Gaza against Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority as a harbinger of future anarchy if the poor, tiny territory of 1.3 million people gains no means to become a viable entity.

"If Israelis only redeploy along borders rather than truly withdraw, making little difference to Gazans, we face a very inflammatory situation," said Muhammad Shtayyeh, director of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction.

The "Disengagement Plan" promises the removal of 8,000 Jewish settlers who occupy some 20 per cent of the Mediterranean strip, and a pull-out from four of 120 West Bank settlements.

Israel said last week it had agreed to work with the World Bank on a "strategic development programme" for Gaza, where 68 per cent of the people live in poverty. But Palestinian employment in a border industrial zone and inside Israel, a key prop of Gaza's economy, would end by 2008.

Israel's plan also makes clear that Gaza, dependent on trade with Israel and the West Bank behind, would remain encircled. Israel would also keep military control of Gaza's southern border with Egypt, its only direct outlet to the Arab world.

"Israel will continue to monitor and supervise the outer envelope on land, have exclusive control of Gaza air space and continue military activity along its coastline," said the text approved on June 6 by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's cabinet.

Businessmen like ice cream maker Ibrahim Mushtana and textile manufacturer Fayeq Bilal say the current Israeli plan gives them scant hope of financial rescue. Mushtana doggedly keeps his factory going despite a 60 per cent loss in income since violence with Israel erupted after the failure in September 2000 of talks on Palestinian statehood.

His machinery looks modern and well-maintained but he runs only one of four production lines for one or two days a week now, and says he stays afloat with bank loans. "It can take from several hours to several days to get my finished products out to my main West Bank market," he said.

BUSINESS MELTDOWN: During the long, hot summer, he says he loses about 200 of the 1,800 cartons in an average truck shipment at the Karni scanning chambers. At Karni a few kilometres, Bilal was constantly on his mobile phone with his Israeli partner trying to determine the fate of a shipment he had submitted 12 hours before.