Quartet Representative Tony Blair warned on Wednesday that the longer the recovery efforts take in the Gaza Strip, the closer Israel and the Palestinians could come to another round of conflict.
In his opening remarks to a report prepared by the Office of the Quartet Representative for a donors conference, Arabs48 news website quoted Blair as saying: “The precarious situation in Gaza and southern Israel, the danger that violence could flare up again at any point, are precisely the reason to move as quickly as possible on the short-term and long-term recovery efforts.”
Blair called for comprehensive support for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and urged the international community to continue to invest in the capacity of the Palestinian Authority (PA). This, he said, could reinforce the PA’s position in both regions.
“This is not about putting the pieces back together in Gaza,” he noted, “This is about making substantive, lasting change, uniting Gaza and the West Bank and opening Gaza back up to the world.”
For this to be achieved, Blair called for the PA to play a leading role, as well as “cooperation from Israel, support from Egypt and the full backing of the international community”.
Blair also welcomed UN Special Coordinator Robert Serry’s announcement on Wednesday that Israelis and the Palestinian factions had agreed upon a procedure for materials entering into Gaza as an important step in the reconstruction efforts.
A Palestinian economic body in Ramallah estimated that the costs of reconstructing Gaza after Israel’s latest war of aggression would be about $7.8bn.
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