Thousands of homes are destroyed, there are an estimated 350,000 refugees, and many many areas are without water and electricity. It is clear that the damage inflicted on Hamas by the IDF far exceeds the Hamas government’s abilities and the international community will now have to assume a role in rehabilitating Gaza. This means that Hamas’ exclusive control is likely to have come to an end.
In addition, there is a major split in Hamas and Ismail Haniyeh locked arms with the Islamic Jihad and they accepted the Egyptian ceasefire initiative against the directive of Khalid Meshal in Qatar. It is too soon to predict what the ramifications of Haniyeh’s decision to defy the Qatar leadership, as his decision is unprecedented.
For Gazans, despite the victory celebrations they are tired. Even the Hamas leaders realized they do not wish to remain in the underground bunkers, they do not wish to continue seeing buildings crumble daily, and they realize that with each passing day the chances of being targeted by Israel increased. Hence the decision to circumvent Qatar and declare its acceptance of the ceasefire; signaling a major break in the most senior leadership of the terror organization.
During the coming hours, days and weeks it will be determined if the ceasefire continues, and during this time the international community including Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations will have to step forward towards undertaking the financial responsibility for rebuilding Gaza.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is confident in his victory, for from his perspective the rocket fire has halted and he has not agreed to Hamas demands. In addition he avoided sending tens of thousands of infantry soldiers and other units into Gaza for a second time.
From a different perspective, Gaza border community leaders feel the prime minister has abandoned them, telling the media “we have lost faith in the prime minister and the government. If Netanyahu would have spent two days here he would have reached different decisions. The ceasefire is nothing less than acquiescing to terrorism”.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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16 Responses
Why does gaza need to be rebuilt? Let them all go to all Arab countries!
It was obvious from day one that Netanyahu was fighting this war half halfheartedly. I was hoping that he wanted to keep Hamas alive so he shouldn’t have to deal with Abbas (read peace treaty) But now with this deal Hamas truly won and Netantahu has to deal with Abbas anyhow.
That is good news for Israel. Foreign money (whether from western countries or the oil sheikdoms) serve as a pure stimulus (unlike the Obamaesque type stimulus drawn from printed money and taxes), which with multipliers will benefit the Israeli economy as well.
Thousands of homes are destroyed…there are an estimated 350,000 refugees, and many many areas are without water and electricity…. ahhh…so sad… I am crying in my cup … so sorry that these chamorim are not 20 feet under…We are obviously not zoicha yet!
i personally think Netanyahu made a very good decision, after he realized how many more soldiers could have been killed he changed tactics and what if he would have invased Gaza?What than ?He is very smart ,Quatar is angry Egypt is happy USA is busy with Isis and he did not give in anything to Hamas, if the cease fire will stay, than no better outcome could have been.Let us do the rest of the job with the Yomim Toiwim coming, iyH.
To comment #1, I quote the Wikipedia article on “Saudi Arabia”, subsection Demographics”:
An estimated 240,000 Palestinians are living in Saudi Arabia. They are not allowed to hold or even apply for Saudi citizenship, because of Arab League instructions barring the Arab states from granting them citizenship; the only other alternative for them is to marry a Saudi national. Palestinians are the sole foreign group that cannot benefit from a 2004 law passed by Saudi Arabia’s Council of Ministers, which entitles expatriates of all nationalities who have resided in the kingdom for ten years to apply for citizenship with priority being given to holders of degrees in various scientific fields.[219
The Arabs don’t care about their own — they only use the Palestinians as propaganda. So why should the world care about them!!!!
Will the ceasefire last long enough to even start rehabilitating Gaza? Or will this incoming money be used for more rockets and tunnels? Maybe they should wait a year or 10 before giving them a dime and send the Arabs home in the meantime to Jordan, Syria or to any of the 21 Arab countries they originated.
Hope Israel will take off Gaza’s unpaid electricity bills of 1.5 billion shekel from the international community.
Since the international aid was used last time to build tunnels, there should be no more money given.
It’s curious that Gaza has to “rebuild”. When we abandoned the Gush Katif communities and gave their homes, shuls, Yeshivos and businesses to the arabs as gifts instead of sending thank you cards all they did was destroy everything. Then they didn’t seem to need international funds to rebuild!
Yeah, great news for Israel,#3. Hamas will take the money and build new and better rockets, tunnels etc., as they have done multiple times in the past.
How much of this proposed aid will be diverted to/by Hamas and its splinter groups? Won’t this just pay for the wherewithal to pursue the next round against Israel in a few short years?
Why should anybody but Hamas have ot pay? Hamas started this mess let them fix it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For all those talking about whether Hamas has won or Israel has won, whether Netanyahu was going all-out or not: who are you to make these claims? Do you think it’s easy to make a decision that will send tens of thousands of young boys into Gaza, where they can be killed? How would you feel if you sent someone into a dangerous situation and they got killed?
It’s a horrible decision to have to make, and I don’t envy Netanyahu’s responsibility in having to make it. I can’t argue with him not wanting to endanger lives, even if it might mean more of it down the road.
#13- I do not envy the PM for having to make difficult decisions. But he chose to be PM. I did not. HE has to make difficult decisions and, yes, be prepared to be criticized for some of them.
#10 – Obviously Israel should insist on proper supervision. In all fairness, the non-Arab donors are outraged that Gaza spent the money on guns and not butter. Israel should start by demanding that the United Nations pay compensation for allowing its facilities to be used for firing rockets at Israel.
The more the civilian economy of Gaza improves, the less popular Hamas will be for getting into wars. The Arab donors will be in a position to force elections, and given how the Arabs do elections, it is likely that the Arab donors (Saudis and Egyptians) will pick the winners, and it won’t be Hamas.
akuperma, this is one of the few times I agree with you. Your 2 comments above are both right on the money!