Living with destruction


September 3, 2014
Sarah Benton


Khalil Anati with his father, Mohammed. 10 year-old Khalil was to have entered sixth grade this week but was killed by a shot in the back. He lived in the Al-Fawar refugee camp in the southern part of the West Bank. He was one of three children and 20 adults killed by IDF in the West Bank during the fighting in Gaza. From Gideon Levy’s The IDF’s real face, referenced below. Photo by Alex Levac

Gaza: what now?
 

Briefing from  WAND, edited by Oliver Miles
September 03, 2014

A week after the 26 August ceasefire something resembling the status quo has been re-established.
 
Over 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, died in the war. Israel lost 71, all but six of them soldiers. 17,000 housing units were destroyed or seriously damaged (5,000 still need repair after previous wars). Rebuilding will take twenty years, based on the capacity of the main Israel-Gaza cargo crossing to handle 100 trucks of construction materials daily. [see report below]
 
Israeli polls are reported to show that Netanyahu’s approval ratings stood at 82% before the Gaza, and fell to 55% during the fighting and 32% as the ceasefire began. 

Netanyahu’s problem appears to stem from the fact that he has failed to convince his natural constituency on the right that he acted decisively in Gaza. They expected Hamas “smashed”, a term used by many on the right throughout the fighting, or at the very least that Israel would insist on the faction’s “demilitarisation”.

[Jonathan Cook, see post above. ]

The same report quotes retired general Shlomo Bron:

This situation is full of political difficulties for Netanyahu. If there is no military solution, then he must engage in a diplomatic process. But if he does so, he will be seen as betraying his support base and this group will search for an alternative on the right who they feel better represents them.

[Jonathan Cook, see above]

Palestinian polls on the other hand show a spike in the popularity of Hamas and its leaders and a major decline in the popularity of Fatah and President Abbas. Large majorities believe that Hamas won the war and that Israel was responsible for it, and support the rocket campaign. 64% believe that Iran first, followed by Turkey and Qatar, gave Gaza the ability to withstand attacks. Approval rating for the Hamas leader Khalid Mish’al is 78% and for Hamas itself 88%. If elections were held today Hamas would easily win over Abbas and Fatah.
 
One immediate provision of the ceasefire agreement was to allow Gaza fishing boats a 6 nautical mile limit, previously 3 miles. Yesterday 2 September Israeli warships are reported to have fired on boats which had “deviated from the designated fishing zone.”
 

West Bank
Meanwhile in the West Bank and Jerusalem the Israeli army is reported to have detained 597 Palestinians in August bringing the total detained since mid-June to over 2,000 and the total held to over 7,000. A report [Gideon Levyin Ha’aretz quotes UN figures: the IDF killed 20 adults and three children in the West Bank during the fighting in Gaza. Soldiers also wounded 2,218 people, 38% of them by live fire, a particularly high number in comparison to 14% in the first half of 2014 and 4% in 2013. “The crimes committed in the West Bank will not be investigated by any international tribunal – there is no need to prepare excuses, write reports or enlist lawyers.” [Gideon Levy]
 
An announcement by Israel that it plans to expropriate four square kilometres (1.5 sq miles) of land, believed to be the largest seizure by Israel in 30 years, near Bethlehem for settlement building has been described by a State Department official as counter-productive, and by the UN Secretary-General and the Egyptian government as illegal. According to the Israeli military the move was a political decision made after the murder of three Israeli teenagers snatched in the same area. The Israeli government is itself divided: the Finance Minister Yair Lapid said the decision would hurt Israel; “What was the pressing need, now of all times, to create another crisis with the Americans and the international community?”, but the Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that it “reflects the broadest consensus in Israel and it is clear to everyone that under any (further) agreement Gush Etzion is part of the state of Israel.” The US pro-peace Jewish organisation J Street has denounced it as negative and harmful, and as a test of US seriousness in Mideast peace-making:

 J Street urges the United States government to undertake a thorough review of its policy toward Israeli settlements and to announce the steps it will if Israel goes forward with this decision. As a first step, it should declare now that it is the view of the United States that settlements are not merely “unhelpful” or “illegitimate” but illegal under international law as laid out in the Fourth Geneva Convention.


An article of 1 September in the Abu Dhabi-based The National, “Palestinians poised to make push towards statehood”, considers the options for the Palestinians.

Palestine’s ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, said this weekend that Mr Abbas could use the UN to ask for a timeline for Israeli withdrawal, and threaten to pursue Palestinian membership to the International Criminal Court if the demand is ignored or refused by Israel and its international allies… We want a date for the end of occupation — that’s the new idea.

The ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told the Guardian that the decision as to whether to give the ICC jurisdiction in Palestine was for Palestinian leaders alone to make: “I cannot make it for them”


Gaza reconstruction will take 20 years, UN-backed construction authority says

Efforts to rebuild will be hindered by ongoing blockades by Israel, Egypt

By The Associated Press [all photos and captions from original]
August 30, 2014


Palestinians attend a victory rally organized by the military wing of Hamas, at the debris of destroyed houses in the northern Gaza Strip. Photo by Adel Hana/Associated Press)

An international organization involved in assessing post-conflict reconstruction says it will take 20 years for Gaza’s battered and neglected housing stock to be rebuilt following the war between Hamas and Israel.

The assessment by Shelter Cluster, co-chaired by the UN refugee agency and the Red Cross, underscores the complexities involved in an overall reconstruction program for the Gaza Strip, which some Palestinian officials have estimated could cost in excess of $6 billion.


Palestinians gather around the remains of a tower building housing offices which was destroyed by an Israeli air strike in Gaza City before the current ceasefire went into effect. Photo by Mohammed Salem/Reuters

Any effort to rebuild Gaza will be hindered by a blockade imposed by Egypt and Israel since the Islamic militant group Hamas seized power in 2007. Israel has severely restricted the import of concrete and other building materials into Gaza, fearing that militants will use them to build rockets and reinforce cross-border attack tunnels.

Egypt and Norway have raised the possibility of convening a Gaza donors’ conference at some point next month, but no firm arrangements have been made.

17,000 homes destroyed

With a population of 1.8 million, Gaza is a densely populated coastal strip of urban warrens and agricultural land that still bears the scars of previous rounds of fighting.

In its report issued late Friday, Shelter Cluster said 17,000 Gaza housing units were destroyed or severely damaged during this summer’s war and 5,000 units still need work after damage sustained in the previous military campaigns. In addition, it says, Gaza has a housing deficit of 75,000 units.


Palestinian officials have estimated that reconstruction efforts in Gaza may cost upward of $6 billion.  Photo by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

Shelter Cluster said its 20-year assessment is based on the capacity of the main Israel-Gaza cargo crossing to handle 100 trucks of construction materials daily.

The latest war began after three Israeli teens were killed in the West Bank by Hamas operatives in June, prompting Israel to arrest hundreds of Hamas members there. Rocket fire from Gaza on Israeli cities then escalated, and Israel launched a massive air and later ground campaign. The fighting lasted almost two months.

Egyptian mediators tried early on to get the sides to agree to a cease-fire. Several temporary truces were broken by Gaza militants.

Over 2,100 Palestinians, most civilians, died in the war. Israel lost 71 people, all but six of them soldiers.

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