Mohammed Mustafa, PIF’s chairman and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ adviser for economic affairs, told the official Palestine television that he had started talks with Palestinian, Arab and foreign investors “to raise the $1 billion fund.”
Mustafa also said the PIF “will invest $200 million in the fund and is working to raise the other amount from Palestinian, Arab and foreign investors.”
The Palestinian Authority set up the PIF in 2003 as an independent investment company to strengthen the local economy through key strategic investments.
Mustafa, also in charge of reconstructing Gaza Strip, said the “the fund aims at reconstructing the damaged infrastructure in Gaza Strip.”
The official arrived in Gaza Strip along with Palestinian businessman to start consultations for reconstructing the region.
“We will start building an airport, seaport, water desalination plants and expand electric network,” Mustafa said.
The Gaza-based Al-Mezan center for Human Rights says Israeli offensives had left about 500 families in tents and destroyed or damaged 11,152 houses.
Tens of donor countries pledged more than $4.4 billion to rebuild the war-torn territory at a conference in Sharm Al-Sheikh in March 2009. But nothing happened on the ground up to now because of the Palestinian internal split as well as the tight siege.
As a result of the lack of materials, Gazans started using earth resources to manufacture mud bricks in an attempt to overcome the Israeli restrictions. The product is a solid block, ready for construction. It is a mixture of sand, clay, calcium and water that are compressed together in one manual machine.
The UN and human rights groups have voiced concern about the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and called on Israel to ease its blockade imposed on the coastal enclave following the abduction of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in June 2006.
They also focused on construction materials such as cement and iron, which would be used to rebuild the damage caused by Israel’s three-week Gaza offensive last winter.
