June 11, 2024
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine
Refugees (UNRWA) said on 10 June that Israel’s aggression on the Gaza Strip has
destroyed over half of the buildings in the besieged enclave.
“The destruction in Gaza is indescribable,” The UN
body said via a social media post. “More than half of all buildings have been
destroyed.”
UNRWA continues to say that “clearing the rubble
will take years. Healing from the psychological trauma of this war will take
even longer.”
The UN separately noted that Israel’s bombing of
Gaza targeted over 180 of their buildings, killing at least 400 people
sheltering under the UN banner.
Earlier in May, the UN Development Programme (UNDP)
stated that repairing the enclave would take roughly 80 years.
Abdullah al-Dardari, the Assistant Secretary-General
and Director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Arab States, told The National
that these construction efforts may cost upwards of $40 billion
“Some donors have to be aware that they will have to
take a risk by investing a little bit of money,” Dardari said. “That’s why we
said let’s have $2 billion [at first], a process that allows us to provide [a]
dignified livelihood for up to a million Palestinians, that will push the
number to up to $3 billion, but still, it’s within reasonable means.”
He later told the Emirati news agency, “We are faced
with a dilemma, but no one is willing to invest big amounts of money in Gaza
before they see a serious, credible peace process. But to see a serious and
credible peace process, again, we don’t know what that would take.”
The UNDP says over 70 percent of Gaza homes have
been destroyed over a span of six months and that the figure could reach 80 to
90 percent as the war continues.
Over one million Palestinians fled to Rafah, seeking
shelter from the bombardment, and are now forced to return to the ruins of
their former homes following Israel’s assault on the southernmost city that
started in May.
The UN Security Council voted on 10
June to support a US resolution backing a ceasefire plan for the war in Gaza.
Hamas has accepted the resolution, according to a top official in the movement,
while Israel has not.
The BBC reports that the proposal sets
out conditions for a “full and complete ceasefire,” the release of Israeli
captives held by Hamas, the return of dead captives' remains, and the release
of Palestinians held captive in Israeli prisons.
Fourteen of the 15 Security Council
members voted in favor of the US-drafted resolution. Russia abstained.
US President Joe Biden unveiled some
aspects of the three-part plan in a televised statement on 31 May, describing
it as an Israeli ceasefire proposal.
The resolution states that Israel has
accepted the ceasefire proposal and urges Hamas to agree to it, too.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri
told Reuters the movement accepted the ceasefire resolution and was ready to
negotiate over the details, adding that it was up to Washington to ensure that
Israel abides by it.
“The US administration is facing a
real test to carry out its commitments in compelling the occupation to
immediately end the war in an implementation of the UN Security Council
resolution,” Abu Zuhri stated.
Hamas also issued a statement saying,
“The movement would like to emphasize its readiness to cooperate with the
mediators to enter into indirect negotiations on the implementation of these
principles that are in line with the demands of our people and our resistance.”
“We also affirm the continuation of
our endeavor and struggle… to achieve [our] national rights, foremost of which
is defeating the occupation and establishing an independent, fully sovereign
Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” it added.
However, it is unclear if Israel has
accepted the proposal as stated in the draft resolution and as claimed by US
Secretary of State Antony Blinken in statements made earlier this week.
In responding to the UNSC vote,
Israeli diplomat Reut Shafir Ben Naftali did not explicitly confirm that Israel
indeed accepts the proposal but instead echoed Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu's criticisms of it over the past week.
In discussing Russia's abstention
vote, Moscow's Ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, said UNSC members were
being told that Israel accepted the proposal, while Netanyahu has repeatedly
insisted that the war will continue until Hamas has been defeated, implying
that both cannot be true at the same time.
“Given the many statements from Israel
on the extension of the war until Hamas is completely defeated ... what
specifically has Israel agreed to?” Nebenzia asked.
The Russian ambassador also said that
UNSC members were being asked to approve a proposal they had not seen in its
entirety.
Despite voting in favor, China also
expressed concerns over the text. The Chinese ambassador to the UN questioned
whether the resolution would be implemented when three previous Security
Council resolutions regarding the conflict were not implemented despite being
legally binding.
A senior Israeli official said the
resolution “restricts Israel's freedom of action.” According to him, “The US
accepted very problematic formulations to prevent the Russians from vetoing,
and the fact that Algeria supported the proposal tells the whole story.”
Algeria is a strong backer of the
Palestinian cause, and many Israeli officials have stated they want the freedom
to continue the war to ethnically cleanse Gaza, annex it to Israel, and build
settlements for Jewish Israelis.
At the same time, the Times of Israel
reported that a clause that stressed opposition to Israel's establishment of
security buffer zones in Gaza was removed following pushback from Israel.
Israel months ago began work on a
security buffer zone on the Gazan side of its southern border, which will see
Israel illegally confiscate some 16 percent of Gaza's territory and maintain
security control of the strip.
The US has publicly condemned the
establishment of the buffer zone, but a senior Israeli official told the Times
of Israel earlier this year that Washington's opposition has not been “as
fierce behind closed doors.”
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