GAZA CITY: The United Nations wants Gaza border crossings to be opened for more than just humanitarian aid and eventually for normal economic transport.
The deputy commissioner general of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Filippo Grandi, insisted yesterday that “a city of 1.5 million people cannot simply live on humanitarian assistance.”
“Access is not just for humanitarian (aid) but is a much bigger issue that needs to be tackled comprehensively,” he told reporters at the EU headquarters in Brussels.
UNRWA has estimated it will need $350 million for its recovery efforts, which will focus on returning people to their homes, repairing and replacing buildings and reopening their schools and health centers. The agency currently has received about one-third of that money in donations.
While assessing the damage on the ground, UN humanitarian chief John Holmes said: “If you want to have reconstruction, you have to have cement and construction materials and pipes and spare parts. Everything has got to come in; that is one of the things we will be insisting on strongly in discussions with Israel.” Holmes was touring Gaza along with UN Middle East envoy Robert Serry.
Since the bombing began Dec. 27, the Israeli Army said it had allowed 2,284 truckloads of humanitarian supplies into Gaza where the population relies on the border crossings for virtually everything.
“It is particularly saddening and sickening to see a school destroyed like this,” said Holmes at the site of one of four UN-run schools in the northern town of Beit Lahiya, which was hit by Israeli strikes during the 22-day war that left much of Gaza in ruins.
The social affairs minister in the West Bank-based Palestinian government accused Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip of hijacking dozens of trucks carrying aid intended for residents. Mahmoud Habbash told Voice of Palestine Radio that the trucks were supposed to come under the authority of UNRWA.
But Hamas said the supply trucks were dispatched by Arab donors specifically for the Hamas administration in the strip, and for no other group, to distribute to the people of Gaza. As a result, the trucks were directed to Hamas warehouses.
Meanwhile, Egypt hosted talks to reach a lasting truce in Palestine. Israeli envoy Amos Gilad held talks with Egyptian officials. The Defense Ministry negotiator headed home after spending several hours in Cairo where the state news agency MENA said he “met with senior officials to discuss consolidating the cease-fire in Gaza.” There was no immediate comment on the outcome of the talks.
Egypt also invited Hamas for separate talks to shore up the fragile cease-fire that took effect Jan. 18 and the group said it would send a delegation to Cairo on Sunday. Hamas postponed the visit, which was to take place yesterday, to allow for more consultations between Egypt and Israel on a durable cease-fire “that would be acceptable to both sides,” a senior official told MENA.
Israeli officials separately said that Israel hoped to push through a prisoner swap to retrieve a soldier held by the Palestinians since 2006. They said Israel was conditioning any lifting of its Gaza blockade on immediate progress in Egyptian efforts to free Gilad Shalit, and would be willing to relax its objections to a list of Palestinian prisoners which Hamas wants released in exchange.
Hamas demands amnesty for 1,400 inmates, including 450 senior fighters. Israel long balked over the latter group, saying their release would sap Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ peace strategies by bolstering Hamas.
“There is a sense that we can afford to relax our criteria now on the prisoner release, as any benefit to Hamas would be more than offset by the damage it sustained in Gaza,” said one Israeli security official.
