ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/GAZA-ANNIVERSARY A year on, both Gazans and Israelis struggle with memories and hope

Record ID: 148118

  • Title: ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/GAZA-ANNIVERSARY A year on, both Gazans and Israelis struggle with memories and hope
  • Date: 7th July 2015
  • Summary: JERUSALEM (JULY 7, 2015) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF ISRAELI PARLIAMENT (KNESSET) KNESSET COMMITTEE OF THE INTERIOR MINISTRY CONVENES TO DISCUSS ONE YEAR SINCE GAZA WAR CLOSE OF HEAD OF ESHKOL REGIONAL COUNCIL GADI YARKONI WHO WAS WOUNDED IN THE AUGUST 26 ROCKET ATTACK AND LOST HIS LEGS, ATTENDING MEETING YARKONI ADDRESSING COMMITTEE (SOUNDBITE) (Hebrew) HEAD OF ESHKOL REGIONAL
  • Embargoed: 22nd July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVABVPZWR5KPMFVHV60MO4KBC8ZH
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS VIDEO WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    Palestinians and Israelis will mark the first year anniversary of a devastating Gaza war between Israel and Hamas on Wednesday (July 8).
    The seven-week war has left more than 2,100 Palestinians, most civilians, and 73 Israelis dead when Israel launched an air and ground assault to put an end to constant rocket fire by Hamas militants from Gaza.
    The war did come to an end but on either side of it those caught up are still struggling to deal with the fallout.
    In Gaza, the impact of the conflict is everywhere. At devastated towns like northern Beit Hanoun or Shejaiya district in Gaza City, where whole neighborhoods are lying in ruins, families sleeping rough in makeshift shelters amidst the smashed rubble of the war.
    More than 100,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed, with none so far rebuilt. Thousands remain homeless and two-thirds of the 1.8 million people - a population growing by 50,000 a year - are recipients of aid in one form or another.
    Since the end of the war, the flow of reconstruction materials into the territory has been greatly restricted, with Israel insisting on tight monitoring of all imports of cement, iron and other materials that could be employed by Hamas to rebuild secret tunnels that were used to attack Israel.
    So slow has the influx of goods been that the United Nations last week said it could take 30 years to rebuild the damage.
    Last month, the International Monetary Fund described Gaza's economy as being on the verge of collapse, with unemployment nearing 45 percent, GDP down 15 percent in 2014 and the once-strong manufacturing sector dying.
    The dire situation has left many in despair.
    "I have no hope. Everything that we're hearing is propaganda. Why? Because the donors are demanding tough requirements. They're asking for a lot of papers that confuse the municipal councils that cause problems and we don't have a quick rebuilding process or even the will (to do it)," said Tawfiq al Thatha, an elderly resident of Shejaiya district..
    But elsewhere in Gaza City scenes of bustling life and optimism are starting to emerge.
    On the Gaza beach a group of people and children gathered on Monday (July 6) to colour structures and bricks on the promenade "to forget the war, to get some relief", said a child named Ahmed al-Faseeh.
    As the sun set over Gaza, there wasn't a table to be found on the terrace of the Roots hotel, only few kilometers away from Shejaiya, with views overlooking the port and the gently crashing waves of the Mediterranean.
    But the scene on the hotel terrace is not a sign of how far Gaza has come since but of the stern resilience of many Gazans.
    So adept have they become at getting by - finding a way to deal with up to 16 hours of power cuts a day, smuggling in everything from live animals to cars via tunnels, scraping together an existence amid militant rule and war - that people begin to regard the extraordinary as normal.
    Gaza has been run by the Islamist movement Hamas since 2007.
    A year on the movement leadership in the isolated strip remained defiant and say the relatively recent calm period shows that Hamas gained the upper hand in the conflict.
    "The real result a year after the war in Gaza, is that it is hard to defeat Gaza, or defeat Hamas and that made all the interested international parties maintain the truce which makes us feel like the ghost of war is far away from Gaza," said Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri.
    Rather than clamping down on the freedom on show at Roots and other beachfront hotels, Hamas's priority is to retain power and deliver something to those battling to make ends meet.
    In recent weeks it appears to have made some progress. After more than a year of keeping its border with Gaza mostly closed, Egypt has in recent days opened the crossing at Rafah to allow people and goods to move in both directions.
    Qatar, a major financial supporter of Hamas, has nearly completed the construction of a new road along the beachfront and has other projects in the pipeline. Yet there are threats.
    Militant Salafist groups claiming ties to ISIS have started to agitate in Gaza, firing occasional rockets into Israel and carrying out attacks. They have threatened to overthrow Hamas and the rival Fatah party.
    As well as a threat to Palestinian authority, they are of deep concern to Egypt and Israel.
    At the official Israeli anniversary ceremony at Jerusalem's Mount Herzl on Monday, attended by Israeli leaders, bereaved families and wounded war veterans, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to "respond with full force" to any regional threat.
    "Hamas has suffered the hardest blow since the day it was established. We closely follow events in the south (of Israel) and prepare to respond with full force when we are required to do so," said Netanyahu.
    Across the Gaza frontier in Israel, where mortar and rocket fire from Gaza rained down ahead of and during the conflict, the impact is less immediate to the eye but no less real.
    Gadi Yarkoni managed a collective farm near the border with Gaza. On the last day of the war, he was hit by a mortar. Two of his friends were killed and he lost both his legs.
    Yarkoni, who travelled to Geneva in January to give testimony in front of a U.N. Human Rights Council inquiry into possible war crimes by Israel and Hamas, hailed the Israeli army as most "humane military" and said it was then at the inquiry when he decided to run for head of council to make a difference.
    "II stand here without legs, and have possibly lost two of my friends because the IDF (Israel defence Forces) did not want to bomb a location housing people and children. In that sense there is no such humane military in the world, and the second thing is that we have to remember I was targeted because I was a civilian. This contradiction is something I was really interested in communicating to the (UN Human Rights Council) committee. In fact, it was at that committee that I started to understand that I really want to influence development processes in the region," Yarkoni said from Jerusalem where he attended a Knesset Committee on the Gaza war.
    Yarkoni is now the head of the local council and channels his energy into bolstering the regional economy, while also wishing that progress can be made in Gaza, too.
    "War is not the ends, but the means. At war time we, the State of Israel, are stronger than anybody else. We may suffer losses too but they will suffer many more. It is not wise to warm up the region. Lets embark on a calm period of development on both sides, development in the Gaza Strip, and development in the State of Israel and then we can see it is much better than continued bloodshed," he added.
    There have been reports in the Israeli and Palestinian press about Hamas and Israel engaging in talks, with the Islamist group offering a long-term truce to its enemy. There has been no confirmation, but officials have not outright denied it either.
    Internal Palestinian divisions, with President Mahmoud Abbas at sharp odds with Hamas and insistent that the Palestinian Authority and his Fatah party should have responsibility in both the West Bank and Gaza, mean any deal between Israel and its neighbours is bitty and far from comprehensive.
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