Mistake For UN To Appoint “Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza” Should Have Separated To Force “Reconstruction” Discussion Now. Role For Turkiye. Israel Looks At Russia Example
Mistake For United Nations Security Council To Appoint “Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza”
Should Have Separated Responsibilities To Force “Reconstruction” Conversation Now
Statements From The White House And United States Department Of State Ignore Reconstruction.
Although Painful For The Heart, And Resulting In Further Suffering For The 2.3 Million Residents Of Gaza, Muslim-Led Nation Leadership Must Be Unified And Declare They Will Not Provide Any Funds For Reconstruction In Gaza Unless Government Of The State Of Israel First Places Funds In Escrow Account For The Benefit Of Residents Of Gaza. Beginning With US$5 Billion- Representing Approximately 2.5% Of The State Of Israel’s Currency Reserves Of Approximately US$200 Billion.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Of The Republic Of Turkiye (2014- ), Must Remain Resolute As The Most Vocal Muslim Head Of State Demanding To Hold Financially Accountable The Government Of The State Of Israel For Its Decision To Destroy Much Of Gaza.
Focusing Upon “What Comes After” For Gaza May Force Government Of The State Of Israel To Confront The Financial Cost To Its Taxpayers- And Moderate Its Behavior.
However, State Of Israel Will Look To Central Bank Of The Russian Federation For Inspiration.
Another Requirement Potential For Muslim-Led Nation Leadership Before Any Provision Of Reconstruction Funding Into Gaza? State Of Israel Returns Golan Heights To Syrian Arab Republic.
Why has the government of the State of Israel not instructed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to avoid destruction of buildings and infrastructure throughout Gaza?
Because the government of the State of Israel believed in October 2023 and continues to believe the Biden-Harris Administration (2021- ), supporters in the United States Congress, and the “Jewish Lobby” consisting of commercial, economic, financial, media, and political leadership will protect it from monetary responsibility. Attorneys representing the government of the State of Israel are expected to argue that the organization Hamas and some of its affiliates and supporters who attacked into occupied territories of the State of Israel are responsible for the deaths of approximately 1,200 individuals, so the organization Hamas and some of its affiliates and supporters owes money to those individuals and their families. If, for example, the value per person is US$1 million, the total would be US$1.2 billion. For individuals murdered in Gaza, with the current total approximately 21,000- and continuing to increase, even if subtracting approximately 5,000 that the government of the State of Israel believes were members of the organization Hamas and some of its affiliates and supporters, the 16,000 if no further deaths are reported (which is impossible) and using US$1 million per person would be worth US$16 billion. Unknown- will attorneys for the State of Israel maintain the value of a life in Gaza is worth less than the value of a life in the occupied territories of the State of Israel? Given statements by the Biden-Harris Administration since 7 October 2023 supporting decisions by the government of the State of Israel, it will support decisions by the government of the State of Israel.
Most importantly, the government of the State of Israel is looking at and learning from how governments funding the government of Ukraine have for nearing two years sputtered about verbally and thus far done nothing to seize and then use for reconstruction in Ukraine the approximately US$320 billion in frozen reserves of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. Governments would rather ask their taxpayers to borrow funds than use funds that exist. Governments would rather ask their taxpayers to incur further debt than use funds that exist. The government of the State of Israel expects that Muslim-led governments will reconstruct Gaza and then State of Israel-based companies will profit from those efforts.
Critical for governments and private sectors to collectively determine now responsibility (liability) for reconstruction of Gaza while the Israel-Hamas War continues in Gaza. That responsibility is 100% with the government of the State of Israel.
Only a global focus now could influence the government of the State of Israel to confront what its decisions in Gaza may cost taxpayers of the State of Israel. A critical cost-benefit pocketbook analysis.
Taxpayers in the State of Israel have a right to know and a responsibility to prepare for the potential billions of Shekels required to repair and reconstruct commercial operations, residential units, and infrastructure throughout Gaza impacted by decisions of the IDF.
The government of the State of Israel instructed the IDF to attack inside Gaza. That decision precipitated responsibility for civilian deaths in Gaza and destruction of civilian anything in Gaza.
The IDF is not absolved from the consequences from the use of its destructive capability. The IDF has chosen its destructive pathway- its enemies did not select it for the IDF.
The government of the State of Israel is correct in maintaining the organization Hamas and some of its affiliates and supporters attacked into occupied territories of the State of Israel.
The government of the State of Israel is correct in defining itself in a war with the organization Hamas and some of its affiliates and supporters.
The government of the State of Israel is not correct in defining its war with the organization Hamas and some of its affiliates and supporters inside Gaza as providing it with a “get out of responsibility” free card and that any destruction within Gaza is the responsibility of the organization Hamas and some of its affiliates and supporters.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 2720
New York, New York
22 December 2023
Excerpt
“4. Requests the Secretary-General, with the objective of expediting the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population in the Gaza Strip, to appoint a Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator with responsibility for facilitating, coordinating, monitoring, and verifying in Gaza, as appropriate, the humanitarian nature of all humanitarian relief consignments to Gaza provided through states which are not party to the conflict, and further requests that the Coordinator expeditiously establish a UN mechanism for accelerating the provision of humanitarian relief consignments to Gaza through states which are not party to the conflict, consulting all relevant parties, with the goal of expediting, streamlining, and accelerating the process of providing assistance while continuing to help ensure that aid reaches its civilian destination, and demands that the parties to the conflict cooperate with the Coordinator to fulfill their mandate without delay or obstruction; 5. Requests that the Coordinator be appointed expeditiously; 6. Determines that the Coordinator will have the necessary personnel and equipment in Gaza, under the authority of the United Nations, to perform these, and other functions as determined by the Security Council, and requests that the Coordinator report to the Security Council on its work, with an initial report within 20 days and thereafter every 90 days through 30 September 2024;”
Links To Related Analyses
Sigrid Kaag of the Netherlands Appointed Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza pursuant to Security Council Resolution 2720 (2023)
https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/12/1145022
“United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today announced the appointment of Sigrid Kaag of the Netherlands as Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza pursuant to Security Council Resolution 2720 (2023). In this role, she will facilitate, coordinate, monitor and verify humanitarian relief consignments to Gaza. She will also establish a United Nations mechanism to accelerate humanitarian relief consignments to Gaza through States which are not party to the conflict. In executing these functions, she will be supported by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). Ms. Kaag is expected to begin her assignment on 8 January 2024.
Ms. Kaag brings a wealth of experience in political, humanitarian and development affairs, as well as in diplomacy. Most recently, she served as the first Deputy Prime Minister and first female Minister of Finance in the Dutch Government since January 2022. Prior to this, she was Dutch Minister for Trade and Development Cooperation from October 2017 until May 2021, and Minister for Foreign Affairs until September 2021. Ms. Kaag was elected party leader of the social liberal party D66 in September 2020 and she stepped down from that position in August 2023. She led her party to victory in the elections of March 2021.
Ms. Kaag has held a wide range of senior positions in the United Nations system. From 2015 to 2017, she was the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, and from 2013 to 2015, she was Special Coordinator of the Joint Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons and the United Nations Mission in Syria. She served as Assistant Secretary-General with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) from 2010 to 2013 and as Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Jordan from 2007 to 2010. Prior to that, Ms. Kaag served in several senior positions with UNICEF, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
Ms. Kaag holds a Master of Arts in Middle East studies from the University of Exeter, a Master of Philosophy in international relations from Oxford University and a Bachelor of Arts in Middle East studies from the American University in Cairo. She speaks Dutch, German, French, English, Spanish and Arabic.”
The White House
Washington DC
27 December 2023
Statement from National Security Advisor Sullivan Welcoming Appointment of Sigrid Kaag as UN Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza
Yesterday’s announcement appointing Sigrid Kaag as United Nations Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza is an important step as we continue to work with the UN as a critical partner in the delivery and distribution of life-saving humanitarian assistance in Gaza. The United States is the largest financial supporter of the humanitarian assistance efforts to support Palestinian civilians who are caught in the middle of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. We welcome Ms. Kaag’s leadership and look forward to working together closely to increase the flow of aid into Gaza, and ensure safety and security for the aid delivery and the humanitarian staff providing the life-saving support to those in need.
United States Department of State
Washington DC
27 December 2023
Matthew Miller, Department Spokesperson: The United States welcomes today’s announcement by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres of the appointment of Ms. Sigrid Kaag of the Netherlands as Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza. We look forward to coordinating closely with Ms. Kaag and the UN Office for Project Services on efforts to accelerate and streamline the delivery of live-saving humanitarian relief to Palestinian civilians in Gaza. The United States has provided more than $110 million in humanitarian assistance for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank since October 7.
United States Department of State
Washington DC
2 January 2024
Rejection of Irresponsible Statements on Resettlement of Palestinians Outside of Gaza
Matthew Miller, Department Spokesperson
The United States rejects recent statements from Israeli Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir advocating for the resettlement of Palestinians outside of Gaza. This rhetoric is inflammatory and irresponsible. We have been told repeatedly and consistently by the Government of Israel, including by the Prime Minister, that such statements do not reflect the policy of the Israeli government. They should stop immediately. We have been clear, consistent, and unequivocal that Gaza is Palestinian land and will remain Palestinian land, with Hamas no longer in control of its future and with no terror groups able to threaten Israel. That is the future we seek, in the interests of Israelis and Palestinians, the surrounding region, and the world.
LINK TO COMPLETE ANALYSIS IN PDF FORMAT
Media Reporting Background
The Wall Street Journal
New York, New York
30 December 2023
Gaz’s Destruction Stands Out In Modern History
By Jared Malsin and Saeed Shah
The war in the Gaza Strip is generating destruction comparable in scale to the most devastating urban warfare in the modern record.
By mid-December, Israel had dropped 29,000 bombs, munitions and shells on the strip. Nearly 70% of Gaza’s 439,000 homes and about half of its buildings have been damaged or destroyed. The bombing has damaged Byzantine churches and ancient mosques, factories and apartment buildings, shopping malls and luxury hotels, theaters and schools. Much of the water, electrical, communications and healthcare infrastructure that made Gaza function is beyond repair.
Most of the strip’s 36 hospitals are shut down, and only eight are accepting patients. Citrus trees, olive groves and greenhouses have been obliterated. More than two-thirds of its schools are damaged.
Israel says that the bombing campaign and ground offensive has inflicted thousands of casualties on its intended target, Hamas. That U.S.-designated terrorist group’s cross-border assault on Oct. 7 killed 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians, according to Israeli officials. The attackers tortured residents and burned homes as they went.
In Israel’s response, its bombs, artillery shells and soldiers have killed more than 21,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in Gaza. The figure doesn’t distinguish between civilians and militants. Most of them are women and children, those officials said.
The destruction resembles that left by Allied bombing of German cities during World War II. “The word ‘Gaza’ is going to go down in history along with Dresden and other famous cities that have been bombed,” said Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago and the author of a history of aerial bombing. “What you’re seeing in Gaza is in the top 25% of the most intense punishment campaigns in history.”
Three months ago, Gaza was a vibrant place. Despite decades of Israeli occupation, sieges and wars, many Palestinians enjoyed living there beside the Mediterranean Sea, where they gathered in cafes and seaside restaurants. Families played on the beach. Young men crowded around TVs in the evening to watch soccer.
Today, Gaza is a landscape of crumpled concrete. In northern Gaza, the focus of Israel’s initial offensive, the few people who remain navigate rubble-strewn streets past bombed-out shops and apartment blocks. Broken glass crunches underfoot. Israeli drones buzz overhead.
In the south, where more than a million displaced residents have fled, Gazans sleep in the street and burn garbage to cook. Some 85% of the strip’s 2.2 million people have fled their homes and are confined by Israeli evacuation orders to less than one-third of the strip, according to the United Nations.
The Israeli military said it is targeting Hamas and taking steps to avoid killing civilians, including by encouraging residents to leave areas it is attacking. The Israeli air force has said its bombing campaign is causing “maximum damage.” Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said in October that “while balancing accuracy with the scope of damage, right now we’re focused on what causes maximum damage.”
Israel has accused Hamas of using civilian buildings to hide entrances to tunnels in which it stores weapons and hides commanders. “When you ask why civilian infrastructure is being damaged in Gaza, look at where Hamas built its military infrastructure, then point your finger at Hamas,” Eylon Levy, a spokesman for the Israeli prime minister’s office, said on Dec. 17 on X, formerly Twitter. The U.S. recently pressed Israel to try to limit the number of civilian casualties.
With the war zone mostly closed to the outside world, experts are surveying damage by analyzing satellite imagery and using remote sensing, which monitors physical characteristics by measuring reflected and emitted radiation at a distance. Their findings, they said, are initial and will need verification on the ground, but are likely an underestimate.
According to analysis of satellite data by remote-sensing experts at the City University of New York and Oregon State University, as many as 80% of the buildings in northern Gaza, where the bombing has been most severe, are damaged or destroyed, a higher percentage than in Dresden.
He Yin, an assistant professor of geography at Kent State University in Ohio, estimated that 20% of Gaza’s agricultural land has been damaged or destroyed. Winter wheat that should be sprouting around now isn’t visible, he said, suggesting it wasn’t planted.
A World Bank analysis concluded that by Dec. 12, the war had damaged or destroyed 77% of health facilities, 72% of municipal services such as parks, courts and libraries, 68% of telecommunications infrastructure, and 76% of commercial sites, including the almost complete destruction of the industrial zone in the north. More than half of all roads, the World Bank found, have been damaged or destroyed. Some 342 schools have been damaged, according to the U.N., including 70 of its own schools.
An assessment by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence found that Israel dropped 29,000 weapons on Gaza in a little over two months, according to U.S. officials. By comparison, the U.S. military dropped 3,678 munitions on Iraq from 2004 to 2010, according to the U.S. Central Command. Among the weapons provided by the U.S. to Israel during the Gaza war are 2,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs designed to penetrate concrete shelters, which military analysts said are usually used to hit military targets in more sparsely populated areas.
Gaza has a rich 4,000-year history. It was a Canaanite and Pharaonic port city that served as a waypoint on trade routes between Africa and Asia. Through history, it built back from wars, sieges, plagues and earthquakes. In 332 B.C., it was the last city to resist Alexander the Great’s march to Egypt—an act of defiance that fueled a mythology of a people who would never bow. The municipality of Gaza’s symbol is a phoenix.
The current war hasn’t spared treasured historic sites. The Great Omari Mosque, an ancient building that was converted from a fifth-century church to a Muslim place of worship, has been destroyed, its minaret toppled. An Israeli airstrike in October hit the fifth century Church of Saint Porphyrius, killing at least 16 Palestinians sheltering there. “The loss of the Omari mosque saddens me more than the destruction of my own house,” said Fadel Alatel, an archaeologist from Gaza who fled his home to shelter in the southern end of the strip.
Israel says many of its airstrikes have targeted Hamas’s network of tunnels underneath Gaza, which they say also hid hostages taken on Oct. 7. Those tunnels lie beneath densely populated areas in ground that contains important municipal infrastructure, making for a challenging battlefield.
“It’s not a livable city anymore,” said Eyal Weizman, an Israeli-British architect who studies Israel’s approach to the built environment in the Palestinian territories. Any reconstruction, he said, will require “a whole system of underground infrastructure, because when you attack the subsoil, everything that runs through the ground—the water, the gas, the sewage—is torn.”
Europe’s cities were rebuilt after two world wars. Beirut rose again after civil war and Israeli bombardment. Iraq’s Mosul and Syria’s Raqqa have limped back to life after U.S.-led air campaigns leveled them during the war against Islamic State, though reconstruction has been slow for both.
Gaza faces unique challenges. No one knows who will take control if Israel achieves its aim of destroying Hamas. Israel has said it opposes a U.S. plan to place the Palestinian Authority, which runs parts of the occupied West Bank, in charge of the strip.
The enclave’s unusual status as a territory with borders controlled by Israel further complicates any road to recovery. After other recent wars in Gaza, Israel has sometimes blocked the entry of construction materials, arguing Hamas could use them for military purposes. In 2015, a full year after a 2014 cease-fire, only one house had been rebuilt—not because of a lack of funds, but because cement wasn’t allowed in.
An analysis by the Shelter Cluster, a coalition of aid groups led by the Norwegian Refugee Council, concluded that after the current war, it will take at least a year just to clear the rubble, a task complicated by having to safely remove unexploded ordnance.
Rebuilding the housing will take seven to 10 years, if financing is available, the group said. It will cost some $3.5 billion, it estimates, not including the cost of providing temporary accommodation.
The level of damage in Gaza is almost double what it was during a 2014 conflict, which lasted 50 days, with five times as many completely destroyed buildings, according to the Shelter Cluster. In the current conflict, as of mid-December, more than 800,000 people had no home left to return to, the World Bank found.
“In a best-case scenario, it’s going to take decades,” said Caroline Sandes, an expert in postconflict redevelopment at Kingston University London.
Alaa Hasham, a 33-year-old mother living in Gaza City’s upscale Rimal neighborhood, used to enjoy sitting in her apartment’s rooftop garden, taking her children to a seaside resort on the weekends and playing chess with friends. She fled with her family soon after the bombing began, joining the small minority of Palestinians who were able to leave for Egypt.
Though her home is destroyed, she is clinging to hope that someday she will return to Gaza. “People think I’m crazy for wanting to go back,” she said. “Gaza is a special place.”
Corrections & Amplifications
Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said in October that “while balancing accuracy with the scope of damage, right now we’re focused on what causes maximum damage.” An earlier version of this article incorrectly quoted Hagari as saying that “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.” Also, in a map showing damage as of Dec. 16 in the Gaza Strip, damaged tree crops cover 8.8% of the area. A map with a previous version of this article incorrectly labeled as damaged the undamaged tree crops, which covered 24.9% of the area. (Corrected on Dec. 30)
