The European Union received on Monday Israel the same medicine that the community bloc continues to prescribe for the devastating conflict in Gaza: a serious lack of seriousness. His foreign ministers had invited their Israeli and Palestinian counterparts, as well as several Arab foreign ministers, to address the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Strip and present a 12-point post-war plan. Something like a declaration of principles that contemplates the celebration of a peace conference in which the foundations would be laid to resolve the conflict with the creation of a Palestinian state and security guarantees for Israel. But when it was her turn Israel Katz the chancellor of the Jewish State, did not speak about one thing or the other. Katz came out of the hat two recycled videos which, according to diplomatic sources cited by Euronews, left the ministers “perplexed”. One of them, to build a railway line between the Middle East and India; the other, to lift a artificial island five kilometers from the coast of Gaza. A project, the latter, supposedly conceived to boost the economy of the Strip, the same one that is being systematically erased from the map as punishment for the attack of Hamas on October 7.
“The minister showed us a couple of videos that had little or nothing to do with the issues we were discussing,” he said later. Josep Borrellhead of European diplomacy, without hiding his frustration and describing both projects as “irrelevant“In fact, none of them are new, nor is the frontal rejection of the Executive of Binyamin Netanyahu to the creation of a Palestinian state, the recipe defended by Brussels and Washington to try to resolve the conflict when the massacre in Gaza ends. The occurrence of the artificial island dates back to 2017, when Katz was Minister of Transport. On the island, according to his promotional video, a commercial port and another of merchandise, as well as logistics facilities and storage, a desalination plant or one electric power plant. International investors or donors would pay for the project, which would connect the islet with the Strip through a highway. An initiative that “aspires to offer a response to a reality that is bad for the Palestinians and is not good for Israel”, according to the outdated voice-over of the video shown to European ministers.
No plans for the day after
In his explanation it is also said that Israel would control the access to the islandthe port inspections or his surrounding maritime spaceas it has done for decades with the territorial waters of Gaza, its air or electromagnetic space. The reasons why it remains a occupied territory in the eyes of international law, even though Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005. The initiative, in any case, has no signs of going anywhere. It is little more than a distraction maneuver against the EU plan, which still does not demand a definitive ceasefire in Gaza.
“It’s the kind of ideas that the Israelis have to breach their international obligations“, a senior official of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) tells this newspaper. Netanyahu still has not presented a plan for the day after of the war, which has made Gaza “an uninhabitable place“, according to the UN. The little he has said is that his country will maintain control over security and will not allow the ANP to replace Hamas at the head of the Strip’s government.
‘Dedevelopment’ in Gaza
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Far from promoting a viable economy in the Strip, Israel has historically worked to turn Gaza into a Captive market of its own economy and a recurring nursery of cheap labor for its agricultural sector and its construction companies. Two lines of action that he has combined with a “development policy“In the words of the Harvard economist, Sarah Roy. Not only has it denied Gazan companies the autonomy to be able to import and export freely, but has taken advantage of many of the wars and offensives of the last half century to destroy its productive fabric. In 2002, for example, in the midst of Second Intifadademolished the Gaza international airportinaugurated four years earlier.
That policy continues now, although on a much greater scale of destruction, accentuated by the total blockade of the borders. UNRWA has once again warned this Tuesday of the risk of famine looming over the Strip, mercilessly besieged 108 days after the Hamas terrorist attack. “570,000 people they face a catastrophic hunger situation“said the agency in charge of Palestinian refugees.