Media coverage
Al Arab · 2021-01-01
Political circles say Hamas’ repeated threats to enter a new war with Israel remain rhetorical, as the movement’s preoccupation with Gaza’s reconstruction is restraining escalation for now. The piece reports that reconstruction is moving slowly for political and financial reasons, while Israel, Egypt, and other mediators are banking on calm through economic facilitation; Omar Shaban says rebuilding will remain slow unless there is security stability, a political track, and Palestinian reconciliation.
Political circles say Hamas’ repeated threats to enter a new war with Israel remain rhetorical, as the movement’s preoccupation with Gaza’s reconstruction is restraining escalation for now. The piece reports that reconstruction is moving slowly for political and financial reasons, while Israel, Egy…
Gaza - Political circles described the threats issued from time to time by Hamas regarding entering into a new war with Israel as rhetorical escalation not matched by practical measures indicating an imminent confrontation.
The circles said that Hamas’s preoccupation, as the movement controlling the Gaza Strip, with the reconstruction file is curbing escalation at the present time with Israel.
A year after the last bloody escalation between Israel and Hamas, the movement is seeking to revive the struggling economy in the besieged Gaza Strip and reconstruct what was destroyed during 11 days of confrontation, while finding itself faced with two choices: either calm or confrontation.
Throughout the 11 days of military confrontation, considered the most violent in years, 260 Palestinians were killed, including 66 children and fighters, while on the Israeli side 14 people were killed, including a child, a girl, and a soldier.
Omar Shaban: The reconstruction process is slow unless there is security stability
During the war, Israel completely destroyed 1,600 Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip, while more than 60,000 other homes in the Strip, which has been under a strict Israeli blockade for more than fifteen years, were severely or partially damaged.
After the truce agreement reached by Israel and Hamas through Egyptian mediation entered into force, the Egyptian president pledged to provide $500 million, with Qatar pledging an equal amount, for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, whose area does not exceed 360 kilometers.
But the reconstruction process is still moving slowly, according to Naji Sarhan, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Housing and Public Works in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. Sarhan attributes this to “political and financial reasons” without providing further details.
Egypt is currently building in the northern and central parts of the Strip three residential cities comprising about 2,000 housing units.
The undersecretary expects “the completion of the reconstruction of 500 homes by the middle of this year, which is one-third of the total number of demolished homes.”
The Strip is home to 2.3 million Palestinians, about two-thirds of them poor refugees.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) is overseeing the restoration and rebuilding of damaged refugee homes in the Strip.
According to the agency’s spokesman in Gaza, Adnan Abu Hasna, it has completely finished the file of partial damages, and this file includes 7,000 homes that sustained either minor, moderate, or severe damage.
Israel is working to ease tensions on its border with the Gaza Strip through a set of economic facilitation measures and by increasing the number of workers from the Gaza Strip employed in Israel, especially since the unemployment rate in the Strip exceeds 50 percent.
Last month, Israel increased the number of work permits it grants to workers from the Strip to 12,000, allocating most of them to workers in the agriculture and construction sectors inside the Hebrew state.
Sources in Hamas had previously announced that they had been informed, through Egyptian and Qatari mediators, of the Hebrew state’s intention to raise the Gaza Strip workers’ permit quota to 20,000, adding 8,000 new permits, due to the “security stability” prevailing in the area.
Palestinian economic expert Omar Shaban confirms that “Israel will seek to prevent an explosion of the situation in Gaza through some economic facilitation measures and by increasing the number of workers.”
Shaban expects the reconstruction process in Gaza to remain “slow unless a political track and security stability are reached.”
He added, “This requires Palestinian-Palestinian reconciliation,” because “the world is tired of rebuilding what is destroyed each time before a new confrontation erupts.”
Issam al-Da’alis, head of the Committee for Following Up Government Work in the Gaza Strip, discussed in Cairo last Thursday a number of economic files with Egyptian officials, at a time when the stages of reconstruction are faltering and Gaza’s residents are living in extremely poor social and economic conditions.
The Government Media Office in Gaza announced in a statement Friday that al-Da’alis headed to Cairo to follow up on the implementation of understandings reached during a previous visit.
Cairo is handling a number of files, including consolidating the truce, reconstructing the Gaza Strip, and mediating between Israel and Hamas on the prisoner exchange file, in addition to ending the Palestinian division.
Arab states, the United States, and the European Union support the Egyptian role in consolidating the truce and reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, and in achieving Palestinian reconciliation.
Text © Al Arab — archived here with attribution to the source. — Machine translation for archival reference. — Original source