Loading ...Deal Reached On Gaza Reconstruction, Palestinian Leader Says
President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority said Thursday night that he had reached an agreement with Israel and the United Nations to allow imports of reconstruction materials into the Gaza Strip, apparently bypassing Hamas to fulfill a key tenet of the cease-fire agreement that halted hostilities on Aug. 26.
A United Nations diplomat confirmed that the deal was due to be finalized and announced on Friday. Mr. Abbas did not provide specifics about when the imports might begin, how much would be allowed or who would control the process. Neither the Israeli prime minister nor the Israeli agency responsible for coordinating activities in Gaza returned telephone calls.
But at an evening meeting of the Palestinian leadership, Mr. Abbas said that a former minister and a United Nations representative had “signed an agreement which allows the entry of all materials to Gaza and the exporting of what’s possible to export from Gaza abroad, which will alleviate the living burdens on the people.” The comments were broadcast on television.
Gaza residents have been increasingly frustrated that more than two weeks after the cease-fire, its promise of open border crossings into Israel has not been fulfilled. Some 11,000 homes were destroyed and more than 50,000 buildings damaged in Israel’s seven-week battle against Hamas, the militant Islamist movement that dominates the strip.
Palestinian leaders estimated reconstruction costs at $7 billion and planned an international donor conference for next month. Yet it was unclear whether Hamas and Mr. Abbas’s Fatah faction could agree on an import arrangement that would meet Israel’s security demands to ensure that materials not be diverted to military purposes.
Mr. Abbas’s assertion that an agreement had been reached came hours after the broadcast of a television interview in which a senior Hamas leader said the group might have to reverse its longstanding ban on direct negotiations with Israel because the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire had not yielded progress on reconstruction.
The interview with the senior leader, Mousa Abu Marzook, along with Hamas’s partial payment of salaries on Thursday to employees of its former Gaza government, highlighted the increasing tension threatening the recent reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah.
Mr. Marzook, who is based in Cairo and has been visiting Gaza, told Al-Quds Television that Islamic law did not ban direct talks with Israel, and that Hamas “may find itself compelled to this behavior” because of the Palestinian Authority’s failure to meet the needs of Gaza residents.
“As we negotiate with weapons, we can negotiate with words,” Mr. Marzook said. “The issues that were sort of taboo policies become on the agenda.”
The Hamas politburo released a statement after the interview saying that “direct negotiations with the Zionist enemy are not of the movement’s policies and are not in the discussions.”
Israel has its own ban on talks with Hamas, unless the movement accepts three conditions: renounce violence, recognize Israel and embrace previous agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Mr. Marzook’s comments may have been less about a practical policy change than a political shot at Mr. Abbas, whose harsh criticism of Hamas over the weekend renewed doubts about the durability of the reconciliation pact signed in April.
One of Hamas’s main goals in the reconciliation was to secure payment of salaries for more than 40,000 people who had staffed ministries in Gaza since 2007, when Hamas, which won elections the previous year and formed a unity government with Fatah that soon collapsed, routed its rival from Gaza.
But the Palestinian Authority, which in the intervening years has continued to pay salaries for 70,000 employees of its own in Gaza, maintains that it cannot send money to anyone affiliated with Hamas, for fear of risking financial support from countries like the United States that consider Hamas a terrorist group.
So Hamas, which has already distributed $40 million to families whose homes were attacked by Israel, on Thursday provided $275 to $1,240 to each of its employees in what officials described as a loan. Hamas, which was suffering financially this spring, has refused to say where the money originated, and the payments only emphasized Mr. Abbas’s accusation that it has continued to operate a shadow government in Gaza.
Employees who had not been paid for months lined up outside the Islamic National Bank in Gaza City, where three money-changers were on hand to exchange the payments in United States dollars to shekels, the Israeli currency used in Gaza.
NY Times
Jody Rodoren