News Analysis: Palestinian unity key to Gaza reconstruction

GAZA (Xinhua) - Implementing reconciliation deals between the Hamas movement and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ' Fatah Party, the latest bid reached in Cairo, and ending feuds between the two rivals would speed up reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian analysts said Saturday.

Following a two-day dialogue sponsored by Egypt, the two rival groups agreed on Thursday to implement all provisions in their previous reconciliation understandings, especially the ones related to operation of the new consensus government.  

Previous deals and agreements between the two sides over the past several years, some reached in Cairo and others in Qatar, Hamas has been controlling security in Gaza since its violent seizure of the coastal enclave in June 2007, ousting Abbas forces and cracking down on his Fatah Party.

Observers have urged the sides to immediately implement the " very positive" Cairo agreements on the ground in good faith to facilitate rebuilding Gaza, which is still reeling from widespread destruction inflicted by a 50-day Israeli offensive that ended on Aug. 26.

Hani al-Masri, a West Bank-based political analyst, told Xinhua that the only choice for the two groups "is to agree and fully implement the details of their agreements on the ground because this would help to a great extent to ease and facilitate the reconstruction process."

"The donor countries would never send one single dollar to the Palestinian territories, mainly to the Gaza Strip, while division between Hamas and Fatah is still going on," said al-Masri. "There is no choice for them but to rescue and save the Gaza Strip from the consequences of the last Israeli war."

On Thursday, leaders of the two rival groups agreed to implement all the outstanding provisions in previous reconciliation agreements, mainly the one which was signed in Gaza in April on forming a six-month transitional consensus government and ending eight years of internal split.

During and after the large-scale Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip, President Abbas had accused Hamas of not enabling the ministers of the consensus government to freely perform their duties, saying Hamas has been ruling Gaza with its own shadow government.

Under the new agreement clinched in Cairo, the ministers of the transitional unity government will be able to freely discharge their duties in the Palestinian territories, mainly in the Gaza Strip, without any obstacles.

The two sides also agreed to support the new government in its effort to end the Israeli blockade that has been imposed on the Gaza Strip for eight years, and operate the cargo and passenger crossing points between Gaza and Israel, and the return of all employees at the crossing points back to their jobs.

Right after Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007, around 70,000 civil and security employees, employed by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), have refrained from going to work, under instruction from Abbas that they stay at home but still get paid their monthly salaries until the end of the split.

Meanwhile, Hamas has employed 40,000 employees to run Gaza, which has a population of 1.8 million.

When a new unity government was formed in early June, Hamas employees insisted that they want to get their salaries paid equally with the PNA employees.

The persistent division between Fatah and Hamas, and the disputes over government employee pay have hampered efforts to rebuild Gaza in the aftermath of the latest Israeli offensive.

"There is no doubt that this issue had negatively influenced the process of reconstruction," Omer Sha'ban, an economist who heads a think tank, told Xinhua. "The donors announced that they won't provide the needed donations as long as the internal Palestinian split still goes on, and that there is no authority in Gaza that handles this issue."

Sha'ban said Israel would take advantage of the issue of internal split as an excuse to keep the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip.

"Consequently, reconstruction would not take place amid closure and blockade, which hinders the entrance of the needed raw materials."