Truce gives Gaza a chance

REBUILDING will be accompanied by the easing of Israel’s blockade, if Hamas behaves.

Truce gives Gaza a chance

THEY have no basis in reality, of course, but the triumphant claims of “victory” being made by Hamas leaders following the announcement of the Gaza ceasefire agreement are inevitable.

For the third time since they seized power in 2007, their tactics in provoking war with Israel have brought death and destruction on a massive scale to the enclave’s 1.8 million people, for not much in return. As in the two previous Gaza wars in 2008-09 and 2012, the cost has been tragically high. Fifty days of conflict this time have killed more than 2000 Palestinians and injured another 3000, most of them non-combatants. More than a quarter of the casualties have been children.

And the terms of the ceasefire worked out by Egyptian negotiators in Cairo are really little better than those concluded after the previous major set-to in 2012, when Israel launched its eight-day offensive codenamed Operation Pillar of Defence.

After the devastation caused by that battle, the international community came together to pledge $4.5 billion for the reconstruction of Gaza. This time, estimates are that the bill will be much higher, with projections the same donors will be called on to stump up a staggering $6bn for the rebuilding of Gaza’s shattered infrastructure.

No wonder UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has publicly bemoaned the cycle of violence: “Do we have to continue like this: build, destroy and build and destroy ... ?”

Hamas leaders, however, see things differently. Remarkably, they have survived — again — and that on its own, to them, is victory.

Yet the truth is that neither side can claim to have achieved its goal of destroying the other. Neither has any basis to claim real victory. Both sides have suffered enormously. For Israel, the loss of almost 70 soldiers and a handful of civilians has been a painful outcome, even though it has again demonstrated its military prowess and unflinching determination to defend itself against concerted attack.

But Hamas, too, has shown a similar degree of determination and even a tactical skill that has surprised many, something seen most remarkably in the warren of three dozen highly sophisticated and well-constructed tunnels, snaking into the heart of major Israeli population centres, that were discovered and destroyed during the Israeli counter-offensive.

Hamas has not been the pushover many expected it might be when it began raining down its stockpile of 10,000 rockets on Israeli towns, inviting what was always going to be a mighty response.

Instead, it, too, has shown remarkable resilience and determination, continuing its barrage of rocket fire right up to the time of the announcement of the ceasefire in Cairo.

Throughout the conflict, Hamas showed few signs of being willing to retreat. On no less than 11 occasions, Hamas was first to break temporary ceasefire agreements.

This time, having signed up to an open-ended ceasefire, there are hopes the agreement will stick. But doubts inevitably remain. Much depends on whether the deal will achieve sustained peace and lead to economic recovery in Gaza. That recovery is desperately needed as a way of improving the lives of Gazans, making them less susceptible to Hamas’s constant beating of the war drums against Israel.

As Omar Shaban, an analyst at a think tank in Gaza, puts it, “We need to look at the roots of the problem ... three wars didn’t lead to a solution on the economic situation, and without a solution there is destined to be a fourth war.”

Certainly, in the ceasefire agreed in Cairo — as in the 2012 ceasefire — there is no aspect more important than that covering the economic stranglehold Israel has imposed on the Strip and that has further impoverished its people. Israel first imposed a blockade on Gaza in 2006 after militants seized one of its soldiers. It was intensified after Hamas seized control in 2007, with restrictions imposed on the entry into the enclave of cement, gravel and steel. Israel said it was determined to stop Hamas from building bunkers and other fortifications.

Amid the international outcry that followed the 2010 Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla trying to break the blockade, Israel relented and slightly eased sanctions on the importation of food and construction material. But they have since been imposed with greater vigour.

No issue rankles more with impoverished Gazans than a blockade that denies them any sort of normal activity and even proscribes their right to fish offshore. And nothing is more potent in ensuring support for Hamas’s ­extremism.

Thus, the ceasefire agreement provides for an immediate easing of restrictions on the two main crossings between Israel and Gaza to admit aid and reconstruction supplies, while fishing limits on Gaza fishermen are to be relaxed, with an immediate extension of the fishing zone to six nautical miles from the shore, to be doubled later to 12NM.

These two points, probably more than any others, were the cause of the mass jubilation in Gaza City following the Cairo announcement. For Gaza, under Hamas, is now a basket case. Unemployment is at more than 40 per cent of those seeking work, and the destruction caused by the conflict is staggering. Christopher Gunness, an official with the UN Relief and Works Agency in charge of Palestinian refugees, speaks of a “homelessness crisis on a massive scale”, with 10,000 homes damaged or destroyed and upwards of 100,000 people without shelter. Others claim as many as 16,700 homes were destroyed.

“(But) building homes is only part of the story,” Gunness says. “The water, electricity and sewerage systems, already decimated by years of blockade, have been damaged to the point of near total ­dysfunctionality.

“Amid the uncertainty, one thing is clear: we cannot rebuild Gaza with the blockade in place.”

Cement and building materials from Israel will be at the centre of the reconstruction process. Not unreasonably, Israeli authorities will be seeking firm assurances (possibly involving international supervision) that supplies will not be used again by Hamas for military purposes but for the reconstruction of houses, schools and hospitals. Their concern is understandable: even while Israel was maintaining a blockade on supplies to Gaza, Hamas was able to construct the three dozen tunnels uncovered during the war. Each of these, Israeli army officials estimate, would have required about 350 truckloads of building material, most likely brought in through the tunnels under Gaza’s border with Egypt at Rafah, which were also the main routes for supplies, including military equipment, sent to Hamas while the Muslim Brotherhood was in power in Cairo.

Egypt’s military rulers subsequently closed these tunnels, but they, too, are likely to be reopened following the ceasefire agreement. It has been made clear, however, that Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi will not allow them to be used to convey military ­equipment.

From Beit Lahiya in the north to Rafah in the south, Israel’s counter-offensive against Hamas’s rocket onslaught has left vast areas of Gaza devastated. Sewerage has been spewing raw effluent for weeks, there is a lack of clean water and there are crippling power shortages. Already, however, help is being promised, and Gulf states have led the way in pledging hundreds of millions of dollars for the reconstruction process, expected to be channelled through the UN.

Israel would like to see what would amount to a Marshall Plan for Gaza: in return for the demilitarisation of Gaza, assistance, led by Israel, would open up the enclave’s economy and allow it to achieve the development that it has been denied since Hamas came to power.

While there seems little doubt the international community will help, demilitarisation is not something Hamas is likely to agree to.

Of the 10,000 rockets it had before the conflict started on July 8, Hamas still has an estimated stockpile of 3000, enough to launch a new offensive. Indeed, despite the devastation wrought by the conflict on Gaza and its ­people, it is unlikely the past seven weeks have done much to change Hamas’s tactics or its commitment to the destruction of Israel.

Both sides have much to answer for in the conflict. Israel has been accused of launching weapons that hit schools and even UN shelters, and of showing little concern to ensure civilians were not caught in the crossfire. Hamas, too, cannot escape the overwhelming evidence of the way it wilfully targeted barrages of devastating rocket fire at Israeli civilians in violation of every norm of civilised behaviour, launching them from the sanctuary of hospitals and other demarcated civilian centres in what was a callous attempt to draw counter-fire on innocent people.

It was Hamas’s rocket barrages that started the conflict; Gazans and Israelis alike have paid a heavy price. Without the Iron Dome defence system that staved off the rocket fire, Israeli casualties would have been far greater, and while the international community now rushes to help rebuild Gaza, it should leave Hamas’s leaders in no doubt that another round of ­aggression will not be tolerated, for no nation anywhere can be ­expected to allow attacks like those launched by Hamas on ­Israel’s civilian populations to go unpunished.

Sadly, as the world confronts the challenge of how best to help Gaza now that a ceasefire is in place, the Gaza conflict has spawned other consequences, too — the wave of anti-Semitism seen across Europe and even in Australia, and global criticism of Israel that too often seems to ignore the reality of Hamas’s aggression and the way it uses civilians to launch attacks.

The ceasefire agreement is, at this stage, no more than a broad framework. Complex arrangements have yet to be worked out in what doubtless will be difficult negotiations in the coming weeks. But it is a start and, with the world lining up to help, the hope must be that the agreement will not go the way of the 2009 and 2012 accords and that this time Hamas will stick to its promises.

The ceasefire agreement and the reconstruction program could change the face of Gaza and give new hope to the cause of peace and a two-state settlement in the Middle East.

After what they have been through, Gaza’s people deserve better than another round of Hamas’s warmongering. So, too, do the people of Israel.

“This time must be the last time to rebuild,” says the UN’s Ban “This must stop now.” He’s right.