The broken promise to rebuild Gaza

A conference of donor states met in Egypt last October to collect the funds needed to rehabilitate the Gaza Strip in the wake of Israel's 2014 genocidal war on Gaza. Twenty-two countries were represented at the meeting.

As with every such gathering, the promises flowed freely: from Hungary, which pledged $160,000, to Norway – $145 million – to Saudi Arabia, which promised half a billion dollars. All told, more than $5.4 billion was collected on paper, of which $3.5 billion was earmarked for Gaza’s rehabilitation.

But after all the self-congratulations, most of the promises have remained just that – promises.

According to a report drawn up last month by the World Bank for the committee established by the donor states conference to oversee the collection of the funds, only $967 million – about a quarter of what was pledged – has been transferred for rehabilitation of the Strip.

And even that figure is misleading, because 45 percent of it constitutes commitments that existed before the war, or was funding injected into Gaza for urgent humanitarian needs during the war.

Thus, only about 13 percent of the funds transferred represent new pledges.

The report adds that most of the countries actually met their commitments, but this constitutes only about 6 percent of the donations, whereas the seven major donors – which pledged $2.7 billion between them – have transferred only 19 percent of their commitments.

For example, Turkey, which agreed to donate $200 million by 2017, has so far sent slightly more than half a million dollars.

A large portion of the funds is earmarked for rebuilding public structures, schools and road infrastructure, but the slow process of bringing in construction materials for those projects is significantly delaying Gaza’s rehabilitation.