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PA says only 40% of international pledges for Gaza reconstruction received
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has said that only 40 per cent of the donations pledged by the international community, for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip following Operation Protective Edge in 2014, have actually been received.
The international community and in particular Gulf states pledged huge amounts of money to repair the destruction in Gaza. However, reconstruction progress has so far been typically slow. A PA report published yesterday, estimated that due to the shortfall, money is available to rebuild just 5,615 of the 11,000 homes destroyed in the conflict.
Last week, the United Nations’ (UN) Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nikolay Mladenov urged a renewed international effort.
He told the UN Security Council: “We in the international community have a responsibility not to fail the Palestinians in Gaza, to help them recover… to assist them in rebuilding their lives and livelihoods.”
Soon after Operation Protective Edge, Israel agreed to the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism which allows for materials to be brought into the Gaza Strip for reconstruction purposes. It is operated in partnership with the PA and is overseen by the UN, which is tasked with ensuring that materials are used only for civilian purposes. Towards the end of last year, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the Israeli body responsible for coordinating movement at the Gaza border crossings, said that under the mechanism, almost 2 million tons of construction materials had entered Gaza.
However, it is thought that Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, routinely confiscates much of the materials intended for civilian purposes and appropriates them for strengthening its own military capability. Hamas has been restocking its arsenal of rockets and has admitted to rebuilding its network of tunnels aimed at attacking Israel. Last week, Dore Gold, the Director General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry said that “out of every 100 sacks of cement that come into the Gaza Strip [from Israel], only five or six are transferred to civilians”.