Palestinian Authority Minister of Civil Affairs Hussein Al-Sheikh asserted on Sunday that his government would continue exerting efforts for facilitating the entry of construction materials into the Gaza Strip, Anadolu news agency reported on Sunday.
In a statement sent to Anadolu, Al-Sheikh said that the Israeli occupation has allowed the entry of 720 tons of cement, 80 tons of gravel and 40 tons of construction metal through the Kerem Shalom commercial crossing with Gaza.
He stressed that the Palestinian leadership would continue its efforts to guarantee the continued flow of construction materials into the Strip in order to rebuild what the Israeli occupation destroyed during its recent war against Palestinians in Gaza.
The director of the Palestinian side of Kerem Shalom, Muneer Al-Ghalban, told Anadolu that the Israeli occupation allowed construction materials to enter on Sunday based on the understanding reached between Israel, the UN and Palestinian Authority.
“These materials were submitted to the private sector and are to be distributed to the people to reconstruct their homes in cooperation with the UN,” Al-Ghalban said.
Based on the trilateral understanding, Israel allowed the entry of the first shipment of construction materials into the Gaza Strip on 14 September after a seven-week blockade.
According to the understanding, the construction materials must pass through a very complicated monitoring process once they arrive at the Palestinian-Israeli crossing until they are delivered to the Palestinian beneficiaries.
Palestinians must first apply for the requested amount of construction materials and international monitors check the applications in order to determine if the need is real or not. Then, they monitor the entry of the materials until the applicant receives them by hand.
Israel insists on these strict measures to prevent the passage of construction materials to Palestinian resistance fighters, allegedly so they cannot use them to reconstruct their tunnels.
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