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Tuesday, June 11, 2024

Israel destroyed half of Gaza’s buildings: UN

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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