The head of diplomacy israeli Yaïr Lapid presented on Sunday a project aimed at ” to improve ” the living conditions of Palestinians in the Strip Gaza in exchange for a commitment to ” calm Of the Hamas movement in power in this impoverished enclave.
“For too long the only two options were conquering Gaza or endless violence. But these are two bad options ”, said Mr. Lapid presenting his initiative named “The economy in exchange for security” at a security conference in Jerusalem.
Two-step plan
More concretely, he proposed a two-step plan, without however going through direct negotiations with Hamas, a movement considered to be “Terrorist” by Israel.
In a first phase, “The power lines would be repaired, the gas connected and a water desalination plant built” in Gaza, a territory under Israeli blockade for more than 15 years which has an average of twelve hours of electricity per day and little drinking water.
In exchange, the Islamists of Hamas will have to commit to a “Long-term calm”, added Mr. Lapid, adding that in the event of violence, Israel’s response would be “Stronger than in the past”.
Secondly, a port and a road “link” will be built between Gaza and the occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas sits, geographically separated by Israeli territory.
“Improve” living conditions in the Gaza Strip
This plan, which has yet to be approved by the Israeli coalition government, is not aimed at settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but at “Act now” for ” to improve “Living conditions in the Gaza Strip and” create better conditions for future talks ”, Argued Mr. Lapid.
Israel and Hamas have fought four wars since 2008, the last in May killing 260 in Gaza and 13 in Israel.
Four months after this last war, reconstruction in the enclave has still not really started despite the commitments of various donors, in particular Qatar, an emirate which maintains relations with Hamas.
The Israeli plan does “could be achieved without the commitment of our Egyptian partners”, argued Mr. Lapid, and will require financial support from the United States, the European Union and ” Gulf countries, starting with the United Arab Emirates ”.
Egypt, Emirates, Qatar
However, the Emirates, a country which normalized its relations with Israel a year ago, is not an economic actor in Gaza, unlike Qatar, a monarchy which maintains privileged relations with Hamas and grants monthly aid to the enclave.
After the last war, Israel demanded that Qatari aid to Gaza no longer be paid in cash, the Jewish state believing that part of this aid was diverted for military purposes by Hamas.
After weeks of diplomatic negotiations, Israel, which has frozen Qatari aid to Gaza since May, recently announced a new system to distribute Qatari aid to the people of Gaza through the UN.
But this system is still not in place and a dispute persists over the payment of Qatari aid to Hamas government officials, the local Qatari envoy said Friday evening.
Muscular events
Amid delays in aid to Gaza, strong protests have taken place in recent weeks along the hyper-secure barrier separating this Palestinian territory from Israel.
And in recent days rockets have been fired from Gaza into Israel, prompting retaliatory strikes by the IDF.
Shortly after the Lapid plan was announced, a rocket was fired from Gaza into southern Israel, where it was intercepted by the “Iron Dome” missile shield.
“In response, we hit 4 Hamas military training, weapons workshop & underground terrorist tunnel entrance”, the IDF said on Twitter.
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