PA prime minister urges donors to pay up for rebuilding of Gaza
Rami Hamdallah says only one-third of the roughly $3.5 billion pledged after 2014 war has been delivered
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The Palestinian Authority’s prime minister has urged international donor countries to “make good on their pledges” to help rebuild the war-battered Gaza Strip.
Rami Hamdallah told a group of donor representatives on Wednesday that only one-third of the roughly $3.5 billion pledged at a 2014 conference has been delivered. The donors are to meet next week in Brussels.
He said they were able to repair more than 100,000 partially damaged homes, while giving compensation to businesses damaged in the war between Israel and Hamas and other Palestinian factions.
But he warned that funding was drying up.
“We call upon you to honor your obligations and effectively contribute to saving Gaza,” he told the conference of donors, United Nations officials and others in the city of Ramallah in the West Bank.
Conditions in Gaza, home to 1.8 million people, have steadily deteriorated since the Hamas terror group seized control of the territory in 2007 and prompted an Israeli and Egyptian blockade which limits the import and export of goods and restricts many basic materials, such as wood and concrete.
Israel and Egypt fear such material will be used to attack Israel. Hamas is avowedly committed to the destruction of Israel.
The frayed relationship between the Palestinian Authority, which rules the West Bank, and the terrorist Hamas group, which runs Gaza, has also impeded reconstruction.
The UN’s special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, said “reconstruction is progressing and it is progressing because of the excellent efforts of both the government of Palestine and international community.”
“But the difficulties in Gaza remain.”
Bashir Rayyes, the Palestinian Authority’s coordinator for Gaza reconstruction, said reconstruction was suffering from shortages.
“The big part of the third (of funds delivered) went to humanitarian assistance and feeding people and what have you. So, what we really have for the Gaza reconstruction is less than $400 million, way less than $400 million, and that in itself is a very big problem.”
“(The $400 million) only brings Gaza back to its previous misery in 2014, but that’s not enough.”
He said at the current rate, the reconstruction efforts could continue until as late as 2020.
The Times of Israel Community.