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World Challenged To Rebuild Gaza

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The Associated Press

Published: March 2, 2009

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip - The seven foul-smelling lagoons of sewage near Gaza's coast were supposed to be replaced by a globally funded waste-treatment plant. Instead, they epitomize the nightmare faced by foreign donors as they seek to rebuild the territory and open a pathway to peace.

The multimillion-dollar project has been delayed by violence and a 20-month-old border closure that have made it difficult to bring supplies into Gaza. Now, after Israel's devastating military offensive, clearing the lagoons is just one part of a much bigger challenge.

Today, some 80 donor countries meeting in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheik will be asked to pledge at least $2.8 billion in aid to Gaza.

There's plenty of goodwill - Saudi Arabia has already promised $1 billion and the United States, $900 million - and the level of representation will be stellar, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and French President Nicholas Sarkozy.

PAVING WAY TO RECONSTRUCTION

But for reconstruction to move forward smoothly, toward pacifying Gaza and opening new horizons for Mideast peace efforts, a series of improbable events would need to happen.

•Gaza's Hamas rulers would likely have to reconcile with their moderate West Bank rivals led by President Mahmoud Abbas. The Islamic militants would then have to soften their violent anti-Israel ideology and agree to share power with Abbas.

•Israel and Egypt would have to recognize Hamas' governing role and reopen the borders they closed after Hamas seized Gaza by force in June 2007. Recently, Israel has also linked a border opening to long-stalled negotiations on a prisoner swap with Hamas.

•A Hamas-Israel truce being mediated by Egypt envisions open borders. But Israel says it can't allow supplies in freely, for fear Hamas - a group committed to the destruction of the Jewish state - would hijack concrete and steel to build bunkers and rockets. Instead, Israel is willing to allow in specific hardware consignments, in close coordination with international aid agencies.

WHAT THE DONOR NATIONS MAY DO

•One possibility is to collect pledges and focus for now on the ongoing emergency relief, in the form of dozens of supply trucks entering Gaza every day.

•Donors will be asked to fund a $2.8 billion reconstruction plan put together by Abbas' prime minister, Salam Fayyad, an internationally respected economist.

•Fayyad wants most of the money funneled through his West Bank-based government. He already administers huge sums of foreign aid - $7.7 billion for 2008-10 - and has been sending $120 million to Gaza each month for welfare and salaries of Abbas' former civil servants. Other aid, such as for rebuilding homes, would go directly to the bank accounts of Gazans.

HAMPERING BORDER RESTRICTIONS

•Thousands of donations in emergency relief are stuck at the border crossings because Israel can't handle a large truck volume at the small passages it's running in place of the main Gaza cargo crossing shut down after the Hamas takeover, the United Nations says.

•The United Nations' top aid official in Gaza, John Ging, says aid agencies cannot distribute food to 900,000 Gazans as quickly as needed.

•Israel says the United Nations isn't sending as many trucks as it could, and that some 117,000 tons of aid have reached Gaza since the Jan. 18 cease-fire, in addition to 2.7 million gallons of fuel for Gaza's power station.

•Ging warned that anything less than open borders would spell disaster and set the stage for more violence.

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