Palestinians to Receive $5.4B for Gaza Rebuilding
JERUSALEM, Israel -- Global donors have pledged a whopping $5.4 billion to rebuild areas in the Gaza Strip damaged by Israeli airstrikes during last summer's military confrontation with Hamas.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry promised $212 million in U.S. tax dollars to help with the reconstruction, while Qatar, which has funded and supported Hamas for years, pledged $1 billion.
Palestinian Affairs analyst Khaled Abu Toameh said the fundraiser, which exceeded Hamas's expectations by some $1.5 billion, will empower Hamas.
"In fact, any funds earmarked for the Gaza Strip will strengthen Hamas, even if the money is coming through the Palestinian Authority," Toameh wrote in an analysis entitled, "How the Donors Saved Hamas."
"All investment in the Gaza Strip's infrastructure will ultimately serve Hamas's interests Hamas will use its own resources to smuggle in additional weapons and prepare for the next war with Israel. This seems to be the agreed division of responsibilities between Hamas and the P.A," he explained.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reminded the world that Hamas fired thousands of rockets at Israel from within residential areas, which Israel then targeted with pinpoint airstrikes to destroy the terror infrastructure. He also explained how the United Nations helped Hamas jihadists.
"These rocket attacks often exploited U.N. neutrality using U.N. facilities, U.N. schools as part of the Hamas machine of terror and when rockets were discovered inside U.N. schools, some U.N officials handed them back to Hamas -- that very same Hamas that was rocketing that very same time Israeli cities and Israeli civilians," Netanyahu said.
Hamas has vowed time and again it will never relinquish its weapons arsenal.
And Netanyahu says the central problem remains the Islamist group's rejection of Israel's right to exist.
