German FM urges Gaza rehabilitation, no more rocket fire

The impoverished Gaza Strip is a “powder keg” at risk of exploding, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Monday during a visit to the war-torn territory.

The German minister, who arrived in the region on Saturday and held talks with top Israeli and Palestinian officials, called for efforts to rebuild the shattered enclave, which was ravaged by a 50-day war last summer, the third in six years.

But he said it would only be possible if there was a halt to Palestinian rocket fire on southern Israel.

“I came out of all my discussions yesterday in Jerusalem and in Ramallah with the hope that all parties are mindful that we are sitting on a powder keg here and that we must ensure that the fuse does not catch alight,” Steinmeier said.

“We shall only be able to decisively reduce the risks of a fresh escalation if we allow economic development in the Gaza Strip, in addition to humanitarian aid and reconstruction,” he said during a tour of Gaza City’s fishing port.

That would only be possible “with open borders” and “the opening of crossing points by Israel” — references to the tough restrictions on the movement of goods and people that have been imposed by Israel and Egypt.

“But none of this will succeed until it is certain that there will be no further rocket attacks from here, when it is no longer a launch pad,” he added.

During his visit, Steinmeier toured a German-funded girls school in the beachfront Shati refugee camp in Gaza City.

But he did not meet any officials from Hamas, the de facto power in Gaza, which is designated by the European Union as a terrorist organization.

On Sunday, during meetings with Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials, Steinmeier raised his concerns about the situation in Gaza. He told President Reuven Rivlin that Gaza’s rehabilitation would build confidence between the sides, and added that resumed peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians should focus on Gaza as well as on the West Bank.

“The troubled situation in Gaza demands of us to think about concrete steps to improve daily life there — without which, I am afraid, the situation is escalating,” he said Sunday.

During Steinmeier’s meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the PM told the German envoy that Israel was seeking to advance “confidence-building measures including the flow of up to 800 trucks a day of construction and humanitarian assistance to Gaza, and we are considering other things.”

Steinmeier is among a relatively small number of Western diplomats to tour Gaza since the war with Israel last summer. While international donors have pledged billions of dollars in aid, little reconstruction has taken place on the estimated 18,000 homes destroyed in the fighting.

Last year’s deadly conflict claimed the lives of more than 2,200 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Palestinian officials in Hamas-run Gaza; and 73 people on the Israeli side, almost all of them soldiers. Israel contends that about half of those killed in Gaza were combatants.

A World Bank report published in May said Gaza’s unemployment rate of 44 percent was “probably the highest in the world,” which, coupled with its soaring poverty levels, was “very troubling.”