[Ynet] Under new deal, up to 800 truckloads of construction material will enter Gazoo per day 'to facilitate recovery and reconstruction of Gazoo,' says UN envoy for Mideast grinding of the peace processor.
| "Construction material" is concrete and rebar, right? I don't imagine it's Italian marble for the bathroom vanities... |
A deal reached on war-battered Gazoo's reconstruction is set to be implemented in the coming months, with the amount of building materials entering the territory expected to quadruple, a UN official said Wednesday, in the first details of the agreement to emerge.
James Rawley, a UN Mideast envoy, said that under a mechanism agreed to by the Paleostinians, Israel and the UN, up to 800 truckloads of construction materials will enter Gazoo per day -- a jump from the 200 or so trucks that enter now, he said.
"This facilitates recovery and reconstruction of Gazoo and we're hoping that this step in the right direction will set the stage for an even more meaningful opening of the crossings," Rawley, the deputy UN envoy for the Mideast grinding of the peace processor, told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.
The details of the deal are a crucial part of Gazoo's rebuilding after the 50-day war this summer that pulverized parts of the territory, flattening entire neighborhoods and reducing houses to rubble.
| Those would be the neighbourhoods hiding the majority of entrances to tunnels leading into Israel, where the majority of rocket launchers were emplaced, strangely enough. |
The agreement comes ahead of a donor conference in Egypt next month, where international benefactors will be looking for guarantees that their pledges materialize into actual construction. Paleostinian officials estimate rebuilding Gazoo could cost $6 billion.
The UN says some 18,000 homes were destroyed or severely damaged in the fighting.
| Strategy Page has pointed out more than once that Israel damaged or destroyed only 13% of Gazan housing, leaving 5.6% of the population homeless. |
More than 2,100 Paleostinians were killed in the war, about three-fourths of them civilians, according to Paleostinian and UN officials.
| But half of them Hamas or other jihadis according to the BBC, the New York Times, and the IDF. Odd, that. |
On the Israeli side, 66 soldiers and six non-combatants were killed. Israel and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, agreed to a cease-fire last month.
Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gazoo after Hamas overran the territory in 2007. The embargo was meant to isolate the Islamic bad boy Hamas and perhaps loosen its grip on power.
Trade and travel has been severely restricted, and the entry of goods -- including construction materials -- has also been limited. Israel says Hamas has in the past diverted cement and steel imported for schools and homes for military purposes, including to build underground tunnels used in attacks against Israel.
Rawley said the UN will monitor the goods from their point of purchase to the end user in Gazoo, addressing Israeli security concerns that the materials could be used by Hamas bad boys.
| The same UN whose schools were filled with Hamas rockets, and which hid entrances to Hamas tunnels? The same schools that teach the Hamas curriculum? Why would anyone think they might be honest brokers in this situation? |
He said that building in Gazoo requires Israel to approve some 100 million dollars' worth of projects, something that the new deal does not address, although talks are taking place on the issue.
Earlier Wednesday, the deputy Paleostinian Prime Minister, Mohammed Mustafa, welcomed the deal, but said a greater easing on the movement of goods and people was also needed.
| Yes, yes. Someone will get back to you on that, Mr. Deputy Prime Minister. |
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