NGOs fume over lack of Gaza rebuilding, call for war crimes charges

Two years after Gaza’s last conflict with Israel, rights groups vented frustration Thursday over the slow pace of reconstruction in the enclave and lack of war crimes prosecutions.

Amnesty International said it was “indefensible” that no criminal cases had been brought for alleged war crimes committed by Israel or the Palestinians, while a coalition of leading NGOs urged Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The July-August 2014 war between Israel and Gaza terrorists destroyed or damaged thousands of homes in besieged Gaza. Some 73 Israelis were killed in the war, most of them soldiers. On the Palestinian side, some 2,200 were killed.

Israel contends that over half of those killed were Hamas fighters and dismisses any allegations of war crimes, blaming Hamas for civilian deaths for placing military infrastructure in residential areas.

Since the war, reconstruction has been painfully slow, with the United Nations taking over a year to rebuild its first destroyed home.

Israel has maintained a blockade on the enclave, limiting the entry of many goods essential for construction that officials fear could fall into the hands of the Islamist Hamas rulers of Gaza and be used for another military build-up.

Only three Israeli soldiers have been charged over the war, all on minor charges, the Amnesty report said, ahead of Friday’s anniversary of the outbreak of the conflict.

“The fact that no one has been held to account for war crimes that were evidently committed by both sides in the conflict is absolutely indefensible,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa head.

“Two years have passed and it’s high time the wheels of justice started turning.”

In a separate report, AIDA — an umbrella body for major international NGOs working in Israel and the Palestinian territories — said Israel’s decade-long blockade was “severely impeding reconstruction and recovery” in Gaza.

“Unless it is lifted, Palestinians living in Gaza will be unable to move on with their lives and live in freedom, dignity and safety,” said Chris Eijkemans, country director at AIDA with the British charity Oxfam.

A spokesperson for the Israeli Foreign Ministry declined to respond, saying officials had not yet read the reports.

“There have been reports like this in the past, but we haven’t yet seen this specific one so I don’t want to give an off-the-cuff response,” Emmanuel Nahshon said.

Israel says it allows hundreds of trucks of humanitarian aid into the Strip daily, and recently began transferring Turkish aid to Gaza as well, as part of a reconciliation agreement signed with Ankara.

As part of the deal, Israel will also allow for the construction of a new hospital and water treatment plant in the Strip.

Hamas, an Islamist terror group openly committed to destroying Israel, seized control of the Strip from the Palestinian Authority in a 2007 coup. It has bragged since the war that it is rebuilding a network of attack tunnels under the Israeli border — two of which were exposed by Israel this spring — and restocking its rocket arsenals while testing more potent rockets for future use against Israel.

In Gaza, although new roads have been constructed, many areas remain desolated and the economy has ground to a standstill.

Over 120,000 homes were at least partly damaged, while around 20,000 were left totally uninhabitable in the war, according to the United Nations.

The Mediterranean enclave’s unemployment rate of 45 percent is one of the highest in the world, while child labor has doubled over the past five years, according to Palestinian estimates.

Sohad al-Masry, a 40-year-old housewife, lost her home in the war, in which her cousin was killed.

“I don’t like to remember but I am sad,” she told AFP. “They have not rebuilt the destroyed houses, the siege and closure (continue), and there is unemployment.”

Fears of another conflict with Israel, which would be the fourth since 2008, have grown in recent months after Israeli forces uncovered the two Hamas tunnels reaching across the border.

After a brief flare-up in May, leaders on both sides have talked of being ready for another conflict.

“I am very worried a fourth war is coming. The occupation is threatening war on Hamas’s tunnels,” said Mohammed Abu Daqa, 26, who works in a government school.

He called on Hamas to reconcile with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement, which runs the West Bank, to whip up global support for lifting the siege of Gaza.

“But unfortunately Hamas and Fatah are not ready for a reconciliation,” he sighed.