I hear otherwise from a well placed reliable source. Gaza will not be rebuilt. Money is hard to come by and no one wants to waste it on rebuilding Gaza.
Israel’s policy is to sustain the status quo. There is no need to do anything that would upset any body in the international community. The PA is trying desperately to get back on the front page but is being upstaged by ISIS. Time is on our side. The PA is falling apart. Palestinians and Gazans are leaving for Europe and elsewhere.
Israel alone will attack Iran and use an airstrip in Saudi Arabia coming and going. There is close cooperation between them.
There is talk of building them an offshore seaport or allowing them to use Ashdod. It is thought that such a port will result in many more Arabs leaving.
The fact that Hamas worked quickly to arrest the group who fired the rocket, is testimony that they don’t want a to break the cease fire. Ted Belman
News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
The United Nations has brokered an agreement to enable the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, giving a lead role to the Palestinian Authority while involving the private sector, the U.N.’s top Middle East envoy said Tuesday.
The agreement between Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the United Nations includes U.N. monitoring to ensure that construction materials will not be diverted from civilian to military uses, Robert Serry told the U.N. Security Council.
Serry said he witnessed “truly shocking levels of destruction to infrastructure, hospitals and schools” during a visit to Gaza last week.
Large neighborhoods have been totally ruined, an estimated 18,000 houses were destroyed or severely damaged, he said. Some 100,000 people have lost their homes, “leaving families shattered and despairing.” He said 111 U.N. facilities were damaged and over 65,000 displaced Palestinians are still living in U.N. shelters.
“The Gaza conflict is an appalling human tragedy, and has also exacted a terrible cost in already strained trust,” Serry said. “While the cease-fire brokered by Egypt has largely held since Aug. 16, it remains worryingly fragile with the underlying dynamics still unaddressed.”
He said the United Nations considers the “temporary mechanism” to rebuild Gaza “a signal of hope to the people of Gaza” and an important step toward lifting all remaining closures of crossings into the Strip. He stressed that it “must get up and running without delay.”
Deputy Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa said last week that international donors are hesitant to fund Gaza’s reconstruction as long as Hamas remains in control there and the specter of future wars looms. Mustafa said international bodies are eager for PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah forces to take on a leading role in Gaza.
Serry called on the Security Council to support the agreement, saying it will help give donors confidence that what they are investing in will be implemented “expeditiously, and solely for their intended civilian purpose.”
He said the monitoring agreement is timely ahead of a donors conference to fund Gaza’s reconstruction on Oct. 12 hosted by Egypt and cosponsored by Norway.
Serry said the U.N. does not want a repetition of a donors’ conference at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in 2009 when a lot of pledges were made to rebuild Gaza after another Hamas-Israel conflict “but there was no possibility to implement these projects” because of issues over getting construction materials into the Strip.
Serry said he has been in close touch with Egyptian authorities who are “very supportive” of the new agreement, and are also hoping that stalled cease-fire talks will resume soon in Cairo between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Pressed for details of the agreement, Serry said that for the first time the private sector in Gaza is going to be fully involved in Gaza’s reconstruction, together with the Palestinian Authority.
He said the U.N. procedure for monitoring the import of construction materials for its own schools, clinics and other facilities, which has been going on for years, will be expanded to cover the wider reconstruction of Gaza. This will require more U.N. monitors though he gave no figures.
The PA said in a study recently that the reconstruction work would cost $7.8 billion, two and a half times Gaza’s gross domestic product, including $2.5 billion for the reconstruction of homes and $250 million for energy.
The World Bank said on Tuesday that the war would contribute to a reversal of seven years of growth in the Palestinian economy, now expected to shrink by nearly 4 percent this year.
Gaza will see a contraction of as much as 15 percent, while a slight recovery in the fourth quarter could push growth in the West Bank, where the PA holds sway, to about 0.5 percent, the World Bank said in a report.
It said the downturn was also a result of restrictions on the flow of goods into Gaza by Israel and neighboring Egypt and a drop in foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority.
Growth, spurred largely by international donor funds, has been decelerating since 2012 and slowed to less than 2 percent in 2013 but could rebound strongly in 2015 if Gaza reconstruction gets under way, the bank said.
A sustainable Palestinian economic future depended on international budget support for the PA and “sincere efforts” by Israel “to allow better and faster movement of people of goods,” while taking into account its “legitimate security concerns.”
Reconstruction appears to be going ahead so I contacted my source to press him on the issue.
@ ArnoldHarris:I just shared what I was told, not what I believe.
“Let me let me count the number of occasions when I have read this self-assured prediction issued by some think tank in or outside Israel that imagines it holds a seat on Zahal’s general staff or its equivalent.”
Well said, Mr. Harris. “The ear tastes words as the mouth tastes meat.” I don’t put much stock in these predictions. I think Yamit has it right: the window closed long ago. And if anything does go down, I think it will be nuclear. This is the reason for the waiting game, because of the vastitude of what will come when Israel goes nuclear. “Iron sharpens iron.”
@ Ted Belman:
Ted, you know the old adage about matters that sound too good to be true. As for me, I gave up wishful thinking after I completed my masters degree in urban and regional planning, and discovered what I ought to have known in the first place, that built-up metropolitan areas can be planned for, but that nothing of such large scale gets implemented except for those planned by gods on Earth such as Daniel Burnham in Chicago and Robert Moses in New York.
Ever since, I have learned to greet good old reality every morning upon arising, and treating it accordingly.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
PA fears Islamic State threat taking world’s attention away from Palestinian issue
Russia, Egypt seal preliminary arms deal worth $3.5 billion
MOSCOW, Sept 17 (Reuters) – Russia and Egypt have reached a preliminary deal for Cairo to buy arms worth $3.5 billion from Moscow, Interfax news agency quoted the head of a Russian state arms agency as saying on Wednesday.
Speaking during an arms trade exhibition in South Africa, the head of the Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation, Alexander Fomin, did not give further details.
Russia, the world’s second-largest arms exporter, has sought to boost its military ties with Egypt after relations between Cairo and its long-standing ally Washington soured, causing some defense cooperation between the two countries to be frozen.
@ Ted Belman:
I call it old news and disinformation. The window for a successful attack on Iran has long closed unless Israel employs theater low yield tactical Nukes.
As Re: The Saudis? Still hard to believe as they would be the first blow-back target by Iran.
Btw Qatar just kicked Mashal out due to American threats of nixing the world cup games in 4 years due to be held in Qatar.
These Arabs got money but no guts.
@ ArnoldHarris:Perhaps I mislead. I was not told that a decision to attack Iran had been made. What I was told is that Israel had to go it alone and will use the landing strip in Saudi arabia.
bernard ross Said:
Consider that they were testing the Israeli reaction or lack thereof.
Consider that nobody is shooting rockets at Israel from Gaza without an OK from Hamas.
Consider that it was a message sent across Israels bow ahead of the coming negotiations in Cairo.
Consider that all of the Israeli declared red lines have evaporated.
Consider that Most of the promised donor money promised to rebuild Gaza will never materialize unless Obama forks it up.
With ISIS nobody in fact gives a damn about Gaza except a bunch of antisemites and left wing Loons.
Who ever comes out on top in Hamas and ultimately the PA will be the most militant.
Btw if you are looking for sources of income to bribe the Arabs to leave Gaza think Gazan off shore Gas and oil.
It is also testimony to BB’s not sending in ground troops merely to achieve the cessation of hostilities OR to install the PA. Hmas remaining in power, neutered, is the best way of thwarting the europeans and PA designs for a unified gov. If I were Israel I would find a way to keep the PA out and influencing gaza to a status quo which encourages migration using UN and EU money.
..
Perhpas the real reason for the euro funding of construction in gaza is to keep the pals from entering europe. Perhaps a port would be good; where it is even cheaper for them to leave for europe and taking the euro grants for housing to finance their trips is an added bonus. Turkish flotillas could be commandeered to instead take the pals to europe and turkey.
“Israel alone will attack Iran and use an airstrip in Saudi Arabia coming and going. There is close cooperation between them.”
Let me let me count the number of occasions when I have read this self-assured prediction issued by some think tank in or outside Israel that imagines it holds a seat on Zahal’s general staff or its equivalent.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI