Israeli curbs lay the enclave to waste

East Jabaliya, Gaza Strip: Ma'amon Khozendar, chairman of Khozendar and Sons Company Ltd, is one of Gaza's most successful industrialists. He's a petroleum importer, and executes major construction projects around the Palestinian enclave.

What he'd most like to do now is help his fellow Gazans recover from the devastating 22-day war that came to an uncertain pause in late January. But rebuilding and rehabilitating Gaza requires the basics of the construction industry - cement and steel - that Israel will not allow in through their border posts.

Khozendar's dilemma presents a window into a core challenge faced by Palestinians and international donors as they gathered in Egypt on Monday to pledge funds for post-war reconstruction.

"I have almost everything I need, except for gray cement and white cement," Khozendar says. "Without those two elements, you can't produce..."

Without a substantial shift in Israel's policy, the $2.8 billion (Dh10.2 billion) the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) hopes will be pledged at the donors' meeting will probably not go beyond humanitarian needs. Until Israel and Hamas reach a negotiated truce, which is being worked on through Egyptian mediation, a whole range of reconstruction projects will remain theoretical.

Khozendar says his businesses alone suffered $2 million in direct losses.

This includes a petroleum station in northern Gaza that got hit by a missile and a marble factory that was reduced to rubble by bulldozers. He says he doesn't count the farm land destroyed in the fighting; bulldozers were used extensively by the Israeli army to "clean out" area where Hamas fighters were based.

"In my own home, I have plastic and nylon sheets on the windows, because all the glass broke in the bombing, and from where should I get glass?" asks Khozendar.

He says that what does come in is brought through the tunnels from Egypt, a system that financially benefits Hamas, which collects taxes on the goods.

"We need glass for 5,000 houses," says Khozendar. Small quantities exist, but because of the extreme shortages, the prices are prohibitive for most. A metre of glass was 45 shekels a few years ago; now it's 300 to 350 shekels. "The amount needed doesn't exist here, and this is one of the critical points to address if we are to rebuild and rehabilitate," he says.

"We're giving people hammers to break the cement and iron to break up the ruins and reuse it. From the rubbish, we can get maybe 40 per cent of our needs. The other 60 per cent has to be brought in," he adds.

A delegation of 17 Gazan businessmen, who were expected to attend the donors' conference, planned to highlight the fact that the Israeli army destroyed "600-700 factories, small industries, workshops, and business enterprises throughout the Gaza Strip," Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported.

Of 255 Gazan plants connected to the construction industry, 63 were hit directly, totalling an estimated $36 million in damages, the paper reported.