Hamdallah urges Hamas to transfer Gaza authority to PA

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah said Saturday that several countries that pledged funds to help rebuild Gaza following Operation Protective Edge have indicated they will not transfer the money until the PA administers the Hamas-run Palestinian enclave.

During an interview with Sky News in Arabic, Hamdallah called on Hamas to follow through on its commitment to transfer control of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority, as agreed in the reconciliation deal earlier this year.

Efforts to implement the unity pact signed in April between the PLO and Hamas have largely faltered following the November bombings of Fatah offices in Gaza, for which the PA has blamed Hamas, and amid tensions surrounding suspected Hamas attempts to overthrow PA President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank.

On Friday, UN and Palestinian officials said that only $100 million — of the $5.4 billion raised at a donor summit in Cairo in October — has been received, mainly from the US and Europe, and the Palestinians have been unsuccessful in securing additional funding since.

The funds were meant to provide the battered coastal enclave with much-needed reconstruction aid following this summer’s bloody 50-day conflict between Israel and terrorist groups operating within the Gaza Strip.

The figure amounted to less than two percent of the total sum donor states promised to transfer. A Palestinian official told Reuters that none of the Arab states have come through yet on their share.

“The Arab countries haven’t paid anything until now,” Palestinian Housing Minister Mufeed al-Hasayna was quoted by Reuters as saying earlier this month. “The Europeans just a few millions, maybe something from the Swedes.”

The October conference, which raised far more than the original $4 billion originally requested by the Palestinian Authority, was considered to be a major success for the Palestinians, with the Gulf state of Qatar pledging $1 billion, Saudi Arabia $500 million, and the United States and European Union promising a combined $780 million of various forms of aid. Turkey and the UAE also pledged $200 million each.

Half of the money pledged was earmarked for rebuilding houses and infrastructure in Gaza destroyed during the conflict, with the rest going towards financing the budget of the debt-ridden Palestinian Authority charged with the reconstruction effort.

Although the Israeli government has acknowledged the need for reconstruction efforts in Gaza, authorities have expressed grave concern that aid will be exploited by Hamas to rearm its supply of rockets and rebuild tunnels leading into Israel. Jerusalem has frequently claimed that cement and other building materials are being used to rebuild much of the elaborate tunnel network that infiltrated into Israeli territory. During the war, the tunnels were used to ambush and kill IDF soldiers and were intended for future attacks on southern Israeli communities.

“We have received funding and pledges of approximately $100 million for shelter and repair,” said Robert Turner, Operations Director for the UN’s Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza, an international agency that provides social services for Palestinians living within the strip, on Friday.

“That money will be largely finished in January 2015. We have a shortfall [for shelter and homes] of $620 million and we are going to run out right in the hardest part of winter,” Turner added.

Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8 to stop Hamas and other groups’ indiscriminate rocket fire on Israeli cities and to destroy the terror tunnels that infiltrate into Israeli territory. During the operation, Hamas rejected a number of ceasefire proposals and violated a number of those that were agreed to.

Israel lost 66 soldiers and six civilians, and a Thai agricultural worker, in the month-long conflict, while the Palestinian death toll surpassed 2,100, according to Hamas officials in Gaza. Israel said half of the Gaza dead were gunmen and blamed Hamas for all civilian deaths because it operated against Israel from residential areas, placing Gazans in harm’s way.

US-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority ended in late April after Abbas signed a unity pact with Hamas. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to continue negotiations with a government that rests on the support of a terror group.

The Palestinians on Wednesday submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council seeking recognition of a Palestinian state and demanding an Israeli pullout to the pre-1967 lines by 2017.