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- 17 juli 2011
Egyptians Help to Rebuild Gaza
With thousands of construction workers being asked to return to work, Gaza has found itself in the middle of a building boom.
The Contractors Association says more than 14,000 new construction jobs have been created this year.
The Israeli siege on the strip over the past four years had brought construction to a standstill.
But since the Egyptian revolution, supplies have been easier to come by.
However, people say rather than hauling construction material through the tunnels, Israel should end its siege and allow trucks to bring the material over the border 11 jan 2012, 14:54 , Respect -
Maria 18 juli 2011
Haneyya urges Erdogan to help in Gaza reconstruction
GAZA, (PIC)-- Palestinian premier in Gaza Ismail Haneyya has urged his Turkish counterpart Recep Erdogan to contribute in Gaza reconstruction and to work for lifting the blockade on the coastal enclave.
Haneyya, in a message carried by a Palestinian government delegation visiting Ankara, hailed the Turkish government’s support for the Palestinian people.
The premier also hoped that Erdogan would adopt the issue of Jerusalem and to raise it at all international platforms.
Haneyya said that his movement, Hamas, had forged reconciliation with Fatah to strengthen the Palestinian position and to rally Arab, Islamic, and international support for the Jerusalem question. Yet foreign intervention impeded reconciliation, he said, charging that such intervention was meant to retain the siege on Gaza.
The government delegation grouping Mohammed Askool, the cabinet secretary, and Yousef Rezka, the advisor to Haneyya, is on a foreign tour to rally support for the Palestinian cause and to open new horizons for cooperation with the Palestinian government.
http://fwd4.me/06wA 11 jan 2012, 14:54 , Respect -
Maria 21 juli 2011
Israeli restrictions ensure slow pace of Gaza reconstruction
RAMALLAH (IRIN) - The housing crisis in the Gaza Strip is not going to be resolved any time soon: Only a small number of the 40,000 units needed to meet natural population growth and the destruction of homes in Israeli military operations are being built, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Israel restricts the import of building materials deemed to be of potential military benefit to Gaza's Hamas government. A limited number of international, mainly-UN-backed, building projects are being allowed to go ahead, but the Israeli checking process is causing delays.
Israel's spokesperson for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the (Palestinian) Territories (COGAT), Guy Inbar, told IRIN that COGAT reviews all international projects due to security concerns.
"COGAT wants to have supervision that the projects are not being implemented near Hamas facilities, and to ensure that construction material goes only to the [Israeli-approved international] projects and not to Hamas."
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) has only brought in a tiny fraction of the construction material needed - 3,291 trucks since June 2010 which is under 4 percent of the agency's overall US$660 million construction plan to rebuild homes and schools in the Gaza Strip over three years.
It had also planned to build 100 schools, a teacher training center, 10,000 "shelters" and two health-care centers.
"The so-called 'easing' of the blockade has made almost no difference in the lives of real people," said UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness in Jerusalem.
In June 2010, after several international activists died trying to end the blockade, Israel announced a package of measures to ease its blockade of the territory to provide relief to Gaza's population, while protecting Israeli citizens from harm.
However, basic construction material like cement, gravel and asphalt remained on specific lists of prohibited "dual-use" items.
And as if to emphasize its determination to maintain the blockade, on July 19 Israeli commandos intercepted and boarded an international protest boat trying to reach Gaza.
Approved projects
Some 73 reconstruction projects worth about 28 percent of the cost of UNRWA's entire work plan for Gaza, have been approved by COGAT. Currently, UNRWA is entering about 240 trucks per week of aggregate and 90 trucks of other building materials. At this rate it will take a year to enter the supplies for the 73 approved projects, said Gunness.
Approved water and sanitation projects are also being delayed due to the lack of construction material.
As a result of the restrictions, there has been a significant increase in the amount of construction material entering Gaza via underground tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border over the past year. An estimated 98,000 tons of construction material was entering Gaza monthly, according to a March report by OCHA.
A similar amount was also now entering via the Kerem Shalom crossing, OCHA reported in June.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has called the blockade "a collective punishment in clear violation of international humanitarian law."
According to Israel, Gaza is no long occupied territory since it withdrew its forces in 2005, and the Hamas government in power is now responsible for the welfare of Gaza's population.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=40733 11 jan 2012, 14:55 , Respect -
Maria 5 aug 2011
UNRWA announces building plans in the Gaza Strip
GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- An UNRWA spokesman in Gaza said Friday that the Palestinian refugee agency plans to build 10,000 homes and 100 schools in the coastal strip over the next three years.
Adnan Abu Hasneh said 51 UNRWA schools in Gaza would be completed by the end of the school year 2012-2013.
The statement said 222,000 students had registered for the upcoming academic year in UNRWA's Gaza schools.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=411028 11 jan 2012, 14:55 , Respect -
Maria 6 aug 2011
New 5-star hotel in blockaded Gaza amid poverty
AL-SOUDANIA, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Gaza Strip's first five-star hotel gleams with marble floors, five luxury restaurants and a breezy cafe overlooking the territory's white sandy beaches and sparkling blue Mediterranean Sea. The only thing missing are guests.
Nearly all of the newly opened hotel's 222 rooms, decked out with ornate metal-worked lamps, flat screen televisions, oversized beds and sea views, sit empty. The tourists whom the developers expected to flood to Gaza when they launched the project 13 years ago are nowhere to be seen. Local residents, most of them living in poverty, can only dream of staying in the gleaming complex.
The eight-story structure is an anomaly in Gaza, yet it cannot escape its surroundings. Residents riding donkey-driven carts occasionally trot by. Women cannot swim in the pool, in a nod to conservative Gaza tradition. There is no alcohol — banned by Hamas in line with Islamic law. On a recent day, two women in conservative Islamic headscarves and loose gowns sipped drinks by the pool, as children splashed inside.
Earlier this month, the hotel's developer, Palestinian investment company Padico decided to finally open it. The company, controlled by politically independent billionaire Munib al-Masri, hopes to recover at least some of its costs and hopes that Gaza's knotty problems may finally be solved in the coming years.
"Its risky — but we need to have a change in Gaza," said public relations manager Shadi Agha.
For now, the risk is not paying off. There are no foreign tourists in Gaza, just a handful of Western aid officials who pass through.
Only 80 rooms are even available. Management doesn't want to spend on maintenance for the remaining rooms, Agha said. Early this month, there were just 10 guests in the entire hotel, though the royal suite, at $880 a night, was occupied.
The guests ranged from international aid officials to a honeymooning Gaza couple who wanted to go somewhere nice, Agha said. He wouldn't identify them further or say who was in the royal suite.
The tale of the $47 million Al-Mashtal has mirrored the plight of the Gaza Strip over the past decade.
Padico began construction of the hotel in 1998, a time when Gaza was awash with optimism. The Palestinians had signed interim peace agreements with Israel, and a final deal to end decades of conflict appeared to be in reach. Tourists would pour in.
But the area had collapsed into violence by 2001. Despite fierce fighting with Israel, the hotel's shell was in place by 2006. But it was badly damaged during a brief civil war the following year as Hamas battled the rival Fatah faction and seized control of Gaza. Palestinian militants smashed some 180 windows during the fighting, Agha said.
The fighting left the Palestinians split between two governments — Hamas in Gaza, and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in control of the West Bank. The two territories flank either side of Israel, and Palestinians want them to build their future state.
Seeking to contain Hamas, Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade that prevented raw materials and limited most commercial goods from entering Gaza. Although the West Bank-based Padico does not have relations to the militant group, the company was unable to bring in key materials.
The building suffered further damage when Israel launched its three-week offensive against Hamas in December 2008. At one point, two Israeli missiles slammed into the hotel.
The hotel was repaired, but it couldn't be opened still, because the managers needed to make the final touches, like the gym equipment. Israel's blockade prevented those materials from entering.
Under heavy international pressure, Israel eased the blockade in May last year following a deadly naval raid that killed nine international activists trying to sail to Gaza. The hotel was finally completed and opened in late July — years behind schedule.
A Padico official, speaking on condition of anonymity under company orders, said he expected the hotel to operate for a couple of years, to test its fortunes. The hotel's ultimate fate will depend on the fate of Gaza.
"We've done our homework. We are leaving the rest for politicians and militants to decide," he said.
With additional reporting by Rizek Abdul Jawad in Gaza City.
http://fwd4.me/08Nm
Gaza looks to upgrade ageing sewage system
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXBh1eGeXHU
New treatment plant hopes to end the deluge of sewage being pumped into the sea every day.
For years Gaza’s sewage system has been close to collapse.
Beaches along the Strip’s 40km of coast are heavily polluted by waste being pumped directly into the sea – 14,000 cubic metres of it per day.
The people who depend on the Mediterranean for their livelihoods are the ones who suffer the most.
Now, work on a new mutli-million dollar treatment plant is underway. Residents are hopeful this will mean the days of dumping waste into the sea are set to become a thing of the past.
Nicole Johnston reports from Gaza.
http://fwd4.me/08Nk 11 jan 2012, 14:55 , Respect -
Maria 10 aug 2011
Fatah: Israel trying to create chaos for PA
RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Israel ignores international law and agreements and supports settlers to create chaos for the Palestinian Authority to complete its settlement project, a Fatah spokesman said Tuesday.
Osama Al-Qawasmi said the PA would continue to build state institutions despite obstacles created by Israel.
The international community has praised the government's state-building achievements and acknowledged that the PA is ready for an independent state, Al-Qawasmi said in a statement.
Israel is creating obstacles to undermine the PA's national goal, the Fatah official said, adding that the Palestinian people would "no longer endure" Israel's attempts to cripple the PA's achievements.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=412160 11 jan 2012, 15:05 , Respect -
Maria 13 aug 2011
Building A Home in the Village of Thabrah
PNN - Thabrah - A group of 12 young people from the United States and Canada, volunteering with the North American organization Hope Equals, helps rebuild a house for a Palestinian family in the village of Thabrah near Bethlehem.
Led by project manager Mariano Avila, Hope Equals works for awareness of the situation in Palestine.
Living in Beit Sahour, the group arrived on July 20th and will head home on August 19th. During that time, they will have spent three weeks visiting the beautiful country and meeting and discussing with various peace organizations and activists in the region.
The last week they spent building a home for a Palestinian family who live in an unsanitary house in Thabrah.
The house has been inhabited by the family for 54 years. Built on the edge of a hill, the house is unstable and the floor is hollow. The ceilings and walls, particularly in the bedrooms, are rotten.
Eleven people live together in this house, composed of two bedrooms and a living-room. But for the last few years, all the members of the family have been sleeping in the same room. The parents explained that due to the precarious state of the house, they don't want to leave their children alone in a separate room in case something happens to the house.
Hope Equals is building strong foundations for the house. After their departure, the family and the organizations involved will have to raise money to keep the construction going. Marwan AL-Faraja, member of the Bethlehem-based organization Holy Land Trust and coordinator of the home rebuilding project, announced that he was hopeful that the house would be built by the end of next summer.
http://fwd4.me/08wa 11 jan 2012, 15:06 , Respect -
Maria 14 aug 2011
Report: Jordan renovating palace in Jerusalem
JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- Jordan is renovating King Hussein's unfinished palace in Jerusalem, Hebrew-language media reported Sunday.
The Palestinian Authority Ministry of Waqf and Religious Affairs is carrying out the work at Jordan's request, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported.
Maariv said the Jerusalem Municipality was not informed of the plans for the building, which is located in occupied East Jerusalem.
The late Jordanian King Hussein commissioned the palace in the 1960s, when the West Bank was under Jordanian control.
The monarch abandoned work on the palace when Israel occupied the West Bank including East Jerusalem in 1967.
According to Maariv, the deserted building is used by prostitutes and drug users.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=412969 11 jan 2012, 15:06 , Respect -
Maria 25 oct 2011
New projects to ease Gaza housing crisis
GAZA CITY (IRIN) -- In response to a growing housing crisis in the Gaza Strip. several new building projects have been initiated by the Hamas-led government, and thousands of families have begun purchasing properties in new communities, officials say.
In Khan Younis, a project is under way on a 517,000 square-meter site which will include apartment and office buildings, schools, clinics, mosques and a commercial center.
Housing ministry official Nagi Sarhan says the site, which will include 98 residential plots, will be able to accommodate just over 30,000 people. Public facilities and infrastructure - water, sanitation and electricity networks - will be built by the municipality.
The project began in October 2010, with a budget of $86,000 funded by the Gaza government. Families, cooperative housing associations and investors have begun purchasing property in the new community which will include a sports club, public parks, and a civil defense and transportation center.
Import of construction material and equipment for private sector building is still restricted under Israel's strict blockade on Gaza, tightened in 2007 after Hamas seized power. Some material is allowed to enter for approved projects implemented by international NGOs and UN agencies.
However, an increased flow of construction material entering Gaza via underground tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border has decreased the price of material and allowed some rebuilding to begin, although the cost of material is still high for the average Gazan as 38 percent of Gazans live in poverty, according to OCHA.
The Hamas-led government - still branded a "terrorist" organization by most Western countries and largely isolated from the international community - has struggled to muster funding to rebuild homes and other buildings destroyed during Israel's 23-day Operation Cast Lead ending January 2009.
Nearly 6,300 homes were damaged or destroyed during the Operation, according to OCHA.
Thousands of families have been forced to wait years to rebuild, often living in sub-standard conditions. Meanwhile, housing needs have been compounded by population growth and the thousands of other homes destroyed in previous military operations, reports OCHA.
Another large-scale community development project, called Al-Boraq, is also under way in Khan Younis.
New homes, schools, mosques, commercial properties, and access roads to neighboring areas are envisaged. The project includes 1,000 plots, each 250 square meters and costing $25,000, said Suleiman Abu Kaide, lead engineer from the ministry on the site; 360 plots have been completed and purchased.
Urban planning schemes are desperately needed in Gaza, where 1.6 million Palestinians live in just 365 square kilometers.
Amman conference
Jordanian and Palestinian contractors are holding a conference in Amman this week, hoping to generate reconstruction and investment in Palestine, focusing on Gaza. Representatives from the Arab League, Islamic Development Bank, NGOs, the European Union and UN agencies are expected to attend.
Gaza public works officials are also in Amman to attend the conference, sponsored by President Mahmoud Abbas and King Abdullah of Jordan.
The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank put forward a recovery and reconstruction plan for Gaza at the Sharm el-Sheikh donor's conference in March 2009.
Over $1.3 billion was pledged by donors to support the plan, but none of the funds have ever reached Gaza, said deputy foreign minister Ghazi Hamad - "possibly since the Arab League and Arab donors as governments do not want to deal with Hamas. Funding before reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas will be difficult."
Spokesperson for the UN Relief and Works Agency Chris Gunness said that at the end of September less than $200 million of the agency's total $661 million three-year reconstruction plan for Gaza had been approved by the Israeli authorities.
UNRWA has been able to enter construction material to complete only about $18 million worth of approved projects in Gaza, he said, including 151 homes, five schools and two medical centers destroyed during Operation Cast Lead.
"This illustrates the small amount of work UNRWA has been able to complete," he added.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=432349 11 jan 2012, 15:06 , Respect -
Maria 15 jan 2011
New excavations at Hisham's Palace in Jericho
JERICHO (Ma'an) Palestinian Authority Tourism Minister Khloud Daibes on Saturday announced the completion of the first stage of excavations at a new site at the historic Hisham's Palace in Jericho.
The project, which will excavate the northern gate of the never-completed Ottoman palace will be the first joint Palestinian-American
archaeological excavation.
Joining the Palestinian team will be a visiting delegation from theUniversity of Chicago's Oriental Institute, a research organization and museum devoted to the study of the ancient Near East.
Inaugurating the project in Jericho, Minister Daibes said the work of the American team was in keeping with the celebration of Jericho's 10,000th birthday.
Long thought to be an unfinished palace used only during the 8th century A.D. and subsequently abandoned, previous research used pottery sequencing to show that areas around the central palace were actually occupied much longer, with estimates saying habitation went into the 13th century.
The latest excavations under the institute's Dr Donald Whitcomb and Palestine's Dr Hamdan Taha, will investigate the theory that the site was not just a palace complex, but was instead an incipient Islamic city.
At the inauguration, Taha said excavators would look for evidence that there were two stages of habitation at the site of the palace, during the Umayyad and then the Abbasid eras. Both archaeologists said they expected the finds at the northern gate to be similar to what was found in the south.
A secondary site near the already uncovered bath will also be
established, the officials said, where work that finished in 2006 would be continued.
Excavations will be centered on the northern hill which was first explored in the mid 1960s under the supervision of Dr Awni Dajani, then director of the Jordanian antiquities department.
The site has been of archaeological interest to collectors and scholars for hundreds of years, with work dating back to the 19th century. Early work, however, was not well documented, and many of the artifacts ended up on the black market.
Now a Palestinian historical site, the palace and the surrounding compound marking Ancient Jericho, is one of a growing number of tourist attractions in the city.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=351275 11 jan 2012, 15:06 , Respect -
Maria 23 nov 2011
Haniyeh inaugurates school in Rafah
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- Gaza prime minister Ismail Haniyeh inaugurated a new school in the city of Rafah on Wednesday.
The school is to be named after the late Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yasin, who was assassinated by Israeli in 2004, a statement said.
“The Palestinian people have the right to live in dignity on their land which Israel occupied and built settlements on," Haniyeh said in his inauguration speech.
"May Israeli tyranny and oppression collapse as a result of the steadfastness of the Palestinian people and their resistance,” he added.
After the inauguration, Haniyeh visited the Sheikh Khalil family in Rafah, who have had five brothers killed by Israeli forces in recent years.
He also visited the home of Hamid Rantisi, one of the militants who took part in the operation which saw Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit captured.
Haniyeh gave orders for a three-story house to be built for the family.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=438849 11 jan 2012, 15:06 , Respect -
Maria 27 nov 2011
Israel Attempts to Foil Palestinian Initiative for Self-Generating Energy
Ramallah, (WAFA) - The Israeli decision demanding Palestinians in the west bank to obtain permits from the Israeli authorities to build solar-cells to generate electricity power, aims at thwarting the Palestinian efforts to self-generate power and stop the reliance on Israel for it, Sunday said an official.
General Director of The Palestinian Energy and Environment Research Centre (PEC), Ayman Ismail, told WAFA that the Energy & Environment Research Center proposed to the Cabinet a three-year initiative, starting from 2012, to generate electricity by using solar – cells, during which the solar-cells, with capacity of 150 Megawatts (MW), will be put on rooftops, and from which 1000 houses will benefit.
Six days after proposing the initiative, Israel demanded Palestinians to obtain special permits that allow them to install solar panels over a required space of 500 square-meters, generate power using photoelectric device, and link it to the electricity companies, according to a previous law enacted in 2008 and imposed only in settlements in the West Bank.
The decision also limits the kilowatts allowed for households, schools, hospitals, and others; houses have only 4- 15 kW to cosume, schools and hospitals up to 50 and institutions and farms 50 kW and over.
Ismail stated that they will demand the four companies providing electricity in the west bank not to deal with the Israeli authorities’ procedures concerning this issue.
He added that the Israeli authority has no right to request permits from the Palestinians and that this request must be addressed and rejected completely.
He added that the PEC is raising awareness on the importance of using the solar power in different parts of the west bank.
He said, “The proposed three-year initiative consists of three phases, through small projects of 5 kW for each project, to be installed on rooftops, whereas the aim of the initiative for the first year is to obtain 0.5 MW from 100 houses and then to expand the project for generating 1.5 MW in the following year. In the last year of the project, an additional 3 MW are generated, to reach a total of 5 MW during the three years, initially.”
He indicated that each Palestinian, who installs this system in his house, will receive a distinctive electricity fee and Incentive rewards. This will be done in coordination with Palestinian electricity regulatory council (PERC), responsible for the organizing of the electricity sector in Palestine.
Concerning the usage of the solar power in the Palestinian Territory, Mohammad Al Helu, Founder and General Manager at Palestinian Solar & Sustainable Energy Society, said that 79% of the Palestinians use solar-cells on their rooftops, thus save 9% of the Palestinian energy bill through solar energy, which is one of the highest rates in the world. It is a Palestinian practice with no legislation or law, he said.
He told WAFA, “The Israeli request has two dimensions; first , it represents the Israeli attempts to dictate that it is the only reference for energy and renewable energy in Palestine, and its efforts to deal with the Palestinian public as detached from the Palestinian Authority, reminding us of the occupations’ measures before Oslo, which is completely unacceptable. The second dimension is concerning the installation of the solar panels and generation of electricity power.”
“As an association we demand to generate electricity power by using the solar power, despite the Israeli rejection,” he added.
He stressed that Palestinians should only refer to Palestinian institutions, on top of which the Energy Authority, in the matter.
He revealed that “the Israeli officer issued this declaration after several Israeli companies completed planning for projects in Area ‘C’, which is under the military and administrative control of Israel, to facilitate the settlements’ obtainment of the solar energy.”
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18146 11 jan 2012, 15:06 , Respect -
Maria 4 dec 2011
30 Dunums Allocated to Build Regional Desalination Plant in Gaza
Desalination plant in Bahrain
RAMALLAH, December 4, 2011 (WAFA) – Upon the directives of President Mahmoud Abbas, the Land Authority informed the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) Sunday of allocating 30 dunums (1 Dunum=1000 Square Meters) of Al Mawasi land in Khan Yunis, a city south of Gaza, to build a regional desalination plant.
Abbas formed a higher committee, whose mission is to carry out an Arab regional tour, to provide the necessary funding to build the desalination plant, which mounts up to $ 450 million.
In a related matter, the PWA continues implementating the hydraulic projects in the Gaza Strip, especially private sanitation projects in Beit Lahiya, north of Gaza, in central Gaza, as well as in the middle governate of the Gaza Strip. The total sum of these three projects is $ 135 million.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18239 11 jan 2012, 15:06 , Respect -
Maria 5 dec 2011
Gulf Cooperation Council Supports Gaza Schools, Housing
AMMAN, (WAFA) - The Islamic Development Bank (IDB), in its capacity as Coordinator for the Program of the Gulf Cooperation Council for the Reconstruction of Gaza, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) have signed two agreements worth $9.2 million supporting education and emergency shelter reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, an UNRWA statement said Monday.
IDB representative Mansour Bin Feten, director of the Bank’s Trust Funds Department, signed the agreements in Amman, Jordan, with Peter Ford, representative of the UNRWA Commissioner-General.
The shelter project will repair 120 refugee houses in Gaza damaged as a result of Israeli incursions. The crisis in Gaza between December 2008 and January 2009 left thousands of refugees homeless, while others were forced to live in insecure and unsafe accommodation.
Almost three years on, many refugees are still waiting to reconstruct their damaged homes. Through the new project 120 families will see their quality of life greatly improved as they will soon be able to enjoy safe and dignified housing, said the statement.
The GCC through the IDB has been a valuable supporter of the Agency’s housing reconstruction and repair efforts. This latest agreement follows earlier agreements worth around $21 million.
In July 2010 an agreement in the amount of $6.5 million was signed for the repair of 852 houses; in January 2011 a second agreement for $6.1 million was signed for the repair of a further 373 shelters, while a third agreement worth $8.3 million was signed this July.
During the same visit, the IDB and UNRWA also agreed to build and equip one new school in Gaza and equip a further three schools previously funded by the IDB. The new school will allow some 2,000 to 2,500 children to move from currently overcrowded, run-down premises into a brand new fully-equipped school building.
Welcoming the agreements, Filippo Grandi, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, said: “The two agreements signed in Amman represent the deepening of an exemplary partnership that has opened between UNRWA and the GCC Gaza Reconstruction Committee acting through the IDB. Over the course of 2011, the GCC and the IDB are fast proving themselves to be among the Agency’s and the Palestine refugees’ most committed supporters. The agreements will improve the living conditions of both hundreds of Palestinians who have been forced to endure years of sub-standard accommodation as well as the learning environment for thousands of schoolchildren who will benefit from a brand new school. They and UNRWA are very grateful to the GCC and the IDB.”
The Islamic Development Bank is an international financial institution which works to foster economic development and social progress in its 56 member countries and Muslim communities in accordance with the principles of Islamic law.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18252
Kuwait Fund to Build Schools in Gaza
AMMAN, (WAFA) - The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development acting through the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) have signed an agreement worth $9,550,000 to construct five new schools in the Gaza Strip, an UNRWA statement said Monday.
The agreement was signed in Amman between the Director of the IDB’s Trust Funds Department, Mansour Bin Feten, and Peter Ford, representative of the UNRWA Commissioner-General.
“Education forms the Agency’s largest program and UNRWA currently educates more than 218,000 refugee students across 243 schools in the Gaza Strip,” said the statement. “About 94% of the schools are run on a double-shift basis and the average class size in Gaza is 38.5 pupils. These five new schools will go a significant way towards easing the overcrowding that is endemic in Gaza’s schools, and which has begun to negatively impact on academic attainment levels.”
Among the five schools funded by the Kuwait Fund is a groundbreaking, pilot “environmental zero impact” school, designed by the Italian architecture firm, Mario Cucinella Architects, which will be showcased by UNRWA at the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference to be held in Durban, South Africa. It is hoped that the green school concept will be rolled out more widely across the Gaza Strip in the coming years.
Commenting on the agreement, Filippo Grandi, UNRWA Commissioner-General, underlined that: “UNRWA is delighted to have signed this agreement to build five schools in Gaza.”
He said, “Education remains the key intervention for the Agency in Gaza and we are most grateful that the Kuwait Fund has come on board to help us meet our goals for Palestine refugee children. This contribution is the first-ever agreement between UNRWA and the Kuwait Fund, acting through the Islamic Development Bank, one of the Agency’s most valued partners, and we are confident that this marks the start of a long and fruitful relationship. We are particularly pleased that the Kuwait Fund and the IDB have decided to fund the pilot green school, an exciting and groundbreaking initiative for the Agency.”
Established in 1961, the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development assists Arab and other developing countries in developing their economies by providing loans, guarantees, grants, technical assistance, and contributing to capital stocks of international and regional development finance institutions and other development institutions.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18251 11 jan 2012, 15:06 , Respect -
Maria 26 dec 2011
The Muqata: Facade of a Palestinian State
The Muqata was once an iconic image of the second intifada.
By: Linda Tabar
Amid talks of reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) so-called state-building continues unabated. Lacking real political power, the illusion of authority is created through the spatial organization of state structures, like the network of buildings known as the muqatas, serving as PA headquarters across the West Bank.
Ramallah - On October 18, thousands of Palestinians poured into the muqata in Ramallah, the PA’s presidential headquarters, to celebrate the release of nearly 500 Palestinian political prisoners as part of a historic deal struck between Hamas and Israel.
For a brief moment, presidential power and authority expressed by the muqata, as controlled space, were subverted. Ordinary individuals, and working and lower class families – many hailing from remote areas of the West Bank, where they are confined to isolated cantons by the Israeli apartheid regime – jubilantly converged on the muqata to greet the prisoners.
Many happily drank tea and juice sold by impoverished street vendors struggling to survive in Ramallah’s neoliberal economy that has become increasingly dominated by franchises, cafes, and branded consumer products.
For a fleeting moment, the space was reclaimed. Thousands participated in a moment of communal joy and witnessed emotional scenes as Palestinian prisoners, who sacrificed many years of their lives for the cause, were embraced by their loved ones.
Yet such moments of collective solidarity have become rare. The spatial transformation of the muqata in Ramallah, and the imposing new presidential palace built there, embody the way the PA has transformed the Palestinian anti-colonial struggle.
The term “muqata” does not merely refer to the main PA headquarters in Ramallah. It stands for all PA administrative centers dispersed throughout the West Bank. Most of the muqatas were built by the British colonial state and served as military installations, police stations, and prisons.
This infrastructure of colonial domination was taken over by the Israeli regime in 1967, which in turn used them for similar purposes. The PA inherited these buildings in 1994 and turned them into administrative headquarters. Today the muqatas are at the center of the PA’s state-building project.
Despite its colonial roots and neocolonial present, the muqata was once an iconic image of the second intifada: most of the compound was destroyed by the Israeli army in the 2002 re-invasion of the West Bank. The ravaged building became a physical marker of Israel’s invasion and its strategy of waging “total war” against the Palestinian people.
Yet, it was also a symbol of defiance: Yasser Arafat remained, besieged, in the sole building of the muqata that remained standing until he became mysteriously ill and later died in 2004.
The reconfiguration of the muqata, both physically and symbolically, began in earnest following Arafat’s death. In October 2005, the PA announced plans to revamp the muqata, in cooperation with the UNDP, funded by the Japanese government.
At the signing ceremony, Rafiq Husseini, then PA president Mahmoud Abbas’ chief of staff, described the PA’s vision of a “newmuqata” as follows: “We need a new headquarters for the president where he can meet world leaders and deal with the world in a modern and civilized manner.”
The reconfiguration was not restricted to the Ramallah muqata alone. The PA is now redesigning its administrative buildings throughout the West Bank and pursuing a much broader spatial transformation.
As Israel solidified a system of fragmented Palestinian bantustans – surrounded by a growing network of Jewish colonies that are linked together by Jewish-only roads – the PA began transforming the spatial and physical territoriality of cantons like Ramallah by constructing new buildings and the infrastructure of a “modern state.”
An official involved in the project of rebuilding the muqata in Ramallah describes it as the PA’s attempt to build an image of “grandeur that creates the impression that we have a state.” Explaining their rationale, he continues: “We can look, act, believe, and walk like a proper state.
Alongside building the institutions and economic policies for a state, we can also build the pillars of state, including a presidential palace.”
Without any sense of irony, the officials are building effigies and physical representations of statehood, which create the false sense that statehood is around the corner, as the settler colonial project becomes more entrenched.
The bid to create spaces where Palestinians relate to the world in a “civilized” manner is also about creating new subjects of the state.
It reflects what Joseph Massad describes as the way the “realists’” leadership have transformed Palestinian political discourse, equating state-building and appeasement with being “modern” and “civilized,” while resistance and national liberation have been recast as “ideological.”
Yet these “civilized” spaces are the antithesis of what the Palestinian liberation movement has struggled for; they amount to sites of defeat where being modern is collapsed into accepting the very modes of domination Palestinians have struggled against. The new monumental muqata in Ramallah is architecturally designed in the image of a modern palace.
The opulent building paradoxically invites comparison with structures of power erected by Arab regimes that popular movements in Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, and Syria are struggling to overthrow.
The muqata in Bethlehem is now slated to be revamped along similar lines to the one in Ramallah, to the tune of approximately US$6 million. A lavish US$10 million presidential guesthouse is also being constructed in Surda, on the outskirts of Ramallah, on the way to Birzeit.
PECDAR (Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction), which supervised the construction of the muqata in Ramallah and is overseeing the construction of the new presidential guesthouse, awarded the contract to a real estate arm of Padico Holding, which is headed by Palestinian billionaire Munib al-Masri.
This in turn underscores the dimensions of political economy underlying the process, where large capitalist entities with ties to the PA are being awarded the bulk of economic contracts and are beginning to dominate the economy.
Alongside the new PA headquarters, private sector commercial developers in Ramallah are constructing new glossy, glass buildings, often modeled in the image of Dubai’s architectural landscape.
This new wave of construction is replacing spaces associated with the second intifada and images of collective struggle with spaces that invite colonized subjects to imagine themselves as part of a fantasy of linear, inclusive capitalist growth (and the fiction of prosperity for all), where the modern is equated with replicating European and American capitalism and a consumer lifestyle.
New Muqata building in Ramallah.
The grand new muqata in Ramallah similarly invites ordinary Palestinians to see themselves as modern citizens, and the illusion of a public space is created through lush green grass in the foreground of the building, regularly maintained with sprinklers.
Yet, those who designed the grass seem to be unaware of the stark contrast between the regular use of sprinklers to water the grass and the condition of ordinary Palestinians living under apartheid who are denied basic access to water, especially in areas like the Jordan Valley.
An official close to the project suggests that the Fatah officials behind the new muqata in Ramallah “believe this is what Arafat would have wanted – a grandiose palace,” a majestic, awe-inspiring symbol of state power and presidential authority.
Model of Arafat Museum
They are also building a museum for Arafat behind the muqata, close to Yasser Arafat’s mausoleum, attaching his memory to this spectacle of presidential state power.
After over sixty years of struggling for freedom from Zionist settler colonialism, Fatah officials are embracing the very symbols of dominant state power and authority, which upholds the system that oppresses them. The real issue underlying transformation of the muqata is the way the oppressed begin to accept the system of power and dominance they have long opposed.
The spatial aspect of the muqata brings this into focus: the wall and the watch towers built around the muqata to secure it, represent an eerie replica and reminder of the architecture of surveillance and control used by Israel’s apartheid wall.
Thinkers associated with the group Decolonizing Architecture, such as Yazid Anani and Sandi Hilal, have long warned against replicating the architecture and instruments of Israel’s systematic colonial domination, or reoccupying and reusing “colonial infrastructure and buildings” in the “very same way they were used under the colonial regime.”
The spatial reconfiguration of the PA headquarters in Ramallah, is the site of much darker colonial and imperial pasts that have now been effaced by the triumphant new structure.
When the PA, under Arafat, appropriated the muqata as its own headquarters, it uncritically occupied and reused a key site of colonial domination and control. In 1930s, the muqata was used by the British army during its campaign to crush the Palestinian anti-colonial revolt of 1936-39; after 1967 the building became a military base and prison used by the Israeli colonial army.
An intellectual close to the grassroots movement against the wall in Bilin critiques the erasure of these histories through the construction of a monumental image of presidential authority:
“This space should have remained a witness to the crimes that were committed there…shame on us for covering the crimes that were perpetrated against us: there are chains there that were used [by colonial authorities in the past] to imprison us!”
It is these dual histories of colonial oppression, on the one hand, and imperial campaigns to crush liberation struggles, on the other – historically associated with this space – which are concealed by the transformation of the muqata. Instead of narrating these subjugated histories, the new PA headquarters treats the space as a harmless one, devoid of this dark past, in effect re-silencing the history of what was done to Palestinians’ colonized indigenous bodies.
The transgressive spaces constructed in post-apartheid South Africa offer an important counter-point, where the oppressed expose the hidden histories of domination, true to the spirit of liberation. For instance, the District Six Museum was built in 1994 “to keep alive the memories of District Six and displaced people everywhere.”
District Six is a part of Cape Town, where 60,000 black South Africans were forcibly uprooted after the apartheid regime declared the district a white-only area in 1966. The museum was created “as a vehicle for advocating social justice” and a “space for reflection and contemplation…challenging the distortions and half-truths which propped up the history of Cape Town and (apartheid) South Africa.”
The transgressive space recovers the memories of apartheid in order to bring them to bear on – and ultimately re-make – the present. Spaces like these contribute to the ongoing struggle to decolonize the imagination from its Western dominated moorings, by exposing these histories of domination, and in doing so, opening up the present to more emancipatory political horizons and ideals of liberation, such equality, return, and justice, which the Palestinians have long upheld.
For decades, the Palestinian liberation struggle has also been about what Edward Said called the “struggle to narrate” – both the history of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine from 1948 to the present and the hidden genealogies of racialized oppression the Palestinians endured.
For decades this narration also informed a humanist vision of liberation that looked beyond racialized hierarchies of colonizer and colonized. Today, the space to narrate this genealogy and re-imagine this political horizon are shrinking in the new spatial reordering of Ramallah, where neoliberalism and the European nation-state order are embraced as benign models and as substitutes for liberation.