The Gaza Reconstruction Game

By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer Iran’s Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani says Muslim nations should help rebuild Gaza following Israel’s 50-day war on the besieged enclave.

Date: 20 October 2014 - 20:56

News ID: ۶۴۷۵

In a meeting with Secretary General of the Islamic Jihad of Palestine Ramadan Abdullah in Tehran, Larijani said, "Islamic countries should take immediate action, away from propaganda fanfare, to help the oppressed Gazans reconstruct their war-ravaged land.”
Abdullah, in turn, expressed gratitude for Iran’s unwavering support for the Palestinian people, saying Israel’s military assaults on Gaza laid bare the regime’s failure to counter the resistance.
On Sunday October 12, in an international conference, donors pledged $5.4bn to rebuild Gaza, but only $2.7bn is slated for reconstruction; the rest will support the PA's budget over the next three years. Throughout the war, more than 60,000 houses were destroyed or damaged, forcing one in four Palestinians in Gaza to flee. Around 110,000 people remain displaced.
Approximately 1,000 industrial enterprises, including factories, were also affected. Close to 2.5 million tons of rubble will need to be removed, according to a 72-page Gaza reconstruction plan presented to donors in Cairo.
The Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism includes an Israeli-Palestinian-UN team to oversee monitoring. That explains why the international aid agency Oxfam has warned that money pledged at the global donor conference in Cairo "will languish in bank accounts for decades before it reaches people, unless long-standing Israeli restrictions on imports are lifted.”
Oxfam says, "Under current restrictions and rate of imports it could take more than 50 years to build the 89,000 new homes, 226 new schools, as well as the health facilities, factories and water and sanitation infrastructure that people in Gaza need.” So no matter how much money international donors raise for reconstruction, Israel determines what gets in and out of Gaza.
In the meantime, the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) has condemned the failure to bring meaningful pressure on the Zionist regime to end the siege that had brought the economy to its knees even before the destruction it wrought on Gaza this summer.
"Donor money pledges are no substitute for holding Israel accountable for its grave violations of international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, and achieving justice for the Palestinian victims,” the BNC stated this week.
The BNC also criticizes the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross for operating "within the confines of Israel’s policy of separation and collective punishment.”
Without also adopting a comprehensive and binding military embargo on Israel, donor states, international agencies and nongovernmental organizations are complicit in an unjust and illegal policy of collective punishment, the BNC makes clear.
To complicate matters, officials in Gaza and Ramallah are already doubtful that the reconstruction plans will bring immediate aid to residents of the battered Strip. The reconstruction plan calls for a highly intricate monitoring system, with restrictive measures on the import and distribution of building materials.
This comes at the behest of the Israelis, who have long barred the entry of basic construction materials.
A new monitoring system will place security personnel and video cameras at distribution points for construction materials, and will vet both suppliers and buyers. And a central database, linked to the Palestinian Ministry of Civil Affairs, but available to Israeli intelligence agencies, will track material entering the Gaza Strip.
The details of this unfair deal were revealed in a document named the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism, which outlined the UN-brokered agreement. That explains why Iranian officials are calling for all Muslim nations to come to the rescue of the Palestinians in Gaza – instead of an unfair deal approved and monitored by the Zionist regime of Israel. Without question, the new international aid and/or reconstruction mechanism signed in Cairo is sluggish, complicated, restricted, insufficient, politicized, pro-Israel and lacking good intentions - considering the enormity of the needs.