Hamas: 'We have alternatives should reconstruction fail'

Hamas has options should the parties charged with reconstructing the Gaza Strip fail to do so, a senior member of the group said yesterday.

Deputy leader Mousa Abu-Marzouk told Palestine TV that the group has other options if the parties fail to rebuild Gaza.

Adding that UN envoy Robert Serry “has not submitted a plan for reconstruction and Hamas has not accepted any plan verbally or in writing.” Adding: “All Serry asked us for was to safeguard the movements of UN staff in Gaza.”

Previously, Abu-Marzouk announced that his movement did not accept Serry’s reconstruction plan, which included heavy monitoring for construction materials, as this would delay the construction process. He described reports that he had given his personal approval to the plan as lies.

He wrote on Facebook that the plan was never presented to the movement and that neither he nor any other member of the organisation agreed to it. Saying Hamas would use all its political and social prowess to modify the plan.

He said that all attempts by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to sidestep Hamas would fail, stressing that Hamas would not leave Gaza employees and any partial solution to their problem would be rejected.

Abu-Marzouk said that the anti-Israeli operations taking place in Jerusalem are all being carried out by individuals and this reflects the resistance culture among Palestinians and this temporarily halted the Israeli division of Al-Aqsa Mosque.