Ramallah: Hamas has not found anything to present to Gazans and the wider Palestinian public as a genuine achievement from its war against Israel, fuelling the perception that fighting in Gaza will resume, observers in Israel have said.
An Israeli media outlet is also warning of the complete absence of reconstruction work in Gaza.
On its website, Ezz Al Deen Al Qassam Bridges, Hamas’s military wing warned that it will resume fighting if Hamas’s demands are not met within the long-term ceasefire agreement. Negotiating teams are scheduled to return to Cairo around the 25th of September.
“If the situation in Gaza goes unaddressed there is a big potential for violence to resume. We must not return to the status quo,” the European Union’s envoy to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen was quoted by Israel media as saying.
He said he was officially informed that Egypt will start sending invitations to the parties within the coming days.
“There is a need to go back to the Cairo talks as soon as possible. We do not want to go back to instability within a few months,” he said.
Talal Okal, a Gaza-based commentator and political analyst, branded the conditions in Gaza as miserable and desperate. “After the war, there was a skyrocketing price increase in the Gaza Strip,” he told Gulf News, claiming that many items are not available in the Gaza markets and if offered they are sold for exorbitant prices that the average Gazan cannot afford.
“Life in Gaza was much better before the war than after it,” he stressed. He said that those whose houses were partially destroyed returned to their houses after even small sections were fixed by the owners and their neighbours. Families whose houses were completely destroyed in the war were kept in UNRWA schools, he said. “It is a time bomb in Gaza as the general conditions are extremely dangerous and explosive,” he said.
A senior Hamas official from the West Bank said that the victory Hamas and other resistance groups achieved in its war against Israel will be worthless from the perspective of the Gazans and the Palestinian public if there are no real achievements on the ground. “Hamas officials clearly understand the need to come up with real achievements and stand up for the promises made during the assault on Gaza,” the official said.
Haaretz reported that the Israeli regime’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon understand the complicated equations and the necessity to offer Gaza some easing measures but the duo does not want Hamas to regard the easing of measures as concessions from the Israeli side.
Another concern they have is that easing measures would negatively add to the already worsening condition of the Israeli ruling coalition that is reportedly on the verge of collapse.
The attitude of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has added ground-breaking hardships, as the PNA and Abbas demand, in accordance with the Palestinian reconciliation deal, a full return to Gaza and the exercise of PNA authority over the coastal strip before accepting a role there. The international community has also made a PNA return to Gaza a central prerequisite to Gaza rehabilitation to seal a permanent agreement.
“We need to see a return of the PA to Gaza in order to lead the reconstruction efforts,” said EU envoy to Israel.
The US Senate issued a letter backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee giving assistance to the PNA in the interests of returning it to power in the Gaza Strip. “We must enable efforts to enable the PA to exercise real power in Gaza,” said the letter.
“Real peace between Israelis and Palestinians will require a Palestinian partner that controls the West Bank and Gaza Strip, is focused on economic development in both areas, and will accept Gaza demilitarisation,” the letter added.
