Gaza reconstruction must be coordinated with PA - Abbas to Egypt
Kamel and Egyptian intelligence officials met with Abbas in Ramallah and discussed with him Egypt’s efforts to achieve a long-term truce between Israel and the Gaza-based Palestinian terror groups.
By KHALED ABU TOAMEHA barber works amid rubble of his shop, which was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike during Israeli-Palestinian fighting, in Gaza City May 25, 2021.(photo credit: MOHAMMED SALEM/REUTERS)
Any reconstruction plan for the Gaza Strip must be carried out in coordination with the Palestinian Authority, PA President Mahmoud Abbas told Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate Director Abbas Kamel on Sunday.Kamel and senior Egyptian intelligence officials met with Abbas in Ramallah. They discussed Egypt’s efforts to achieve a long-term truce between Israel and the Gaza-based Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas.The two sides also discussed ways of ending the dispute between Abbas’s Fatah faction and Hamas, as well as the possibility of resuming the peace process between the Palestinians and Israel under the auspices of the Quartet – the US, United Nations, European Union and Russia.Kamel assured Abbas that Egypt considers him the legitimate leader of the Palestinians and would coordinate any moves related to the Palestinians with the PA leadership, including reconstruction of the Gaza Strip in the aftermath of the recent war between Israel and the Gaza-based terrorist groups.Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi has pledged $500 million to the reconstruction effort.The PA is ready to assume responsibility for overseeing reconstruction of the Gaza Strip on condition that the move is coordinated in advance with the Ramallah-based government, Abbas and other PA officials have told the US, the UN, the EU and some Arab countries.Some Hamas officials have reportedly expressed reservations about allowing the PA to play a role in the reconstruction effort.A senior Egyptian security delegation was expected to arrive in the Gaza Strip on Monday for additional talks with leaders of Hamas and other factions on ways of maintaining the ceasefire with Israel, Palestinian sources said. On the eve of the visit, billboards with posters of Sisi appeared in some areas of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.Several Egyptian journalists entered the Gaza Strip on Sunday, the sources said.The Egyptians are trying to secure a long-term truce between Hamas and Israel that would also include a prisoner-exchange agreement, they added.PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Sunday discussed the reconstruction issue with EU Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process Sven Koopmans, who assumed his position on May 1.During a meeting in Ramallah, they also discussed efforts to revive the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process.Shtayyeh stressed the need for “filling the political vacuum” by having the EU present an initiative for the resumption of the peace process with the participation of the Quartet.The PA has established a “technical team” for reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, he said, without providing further details.The PA was still determined to hold general elections and called on the international community to put pressure on Israel to allow the vote to take place in Jerusalem, Shtayyeh told Koopmans.In late April, Abbas announced his decision to delay the parliamentary and presidential elections, which were slated for May 22 and July 31, respectively, on the pretext that Israel did not respond to his request to include Jerusalem in the Palestinian vote.“The whole world, especially Europe, must take a firm and serious stance toward the Israeli occupation to stop the settlement expansion and violations against our people and to make Israel pay the price for its occupation of Palestinian land,” Shtayyeh told Koopmans.
