Board of Peace plans $2.4bn Gaza reconstruction as Israel kills seven

The United States-backed Board of Peace has proposed a $2.4bn plan to begin reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, even as Israeli attacks kill seven Palestinians across the enclave.

The body tasked with overseeing the ceasefire and Gaza’s reconstruction unveiled on Wednesday a 66-project blueprint at a meeting of the group’s board on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

The full cost of the reconstruction from the damage inflicted on Gaza by Israeli attacks is expected to cost about $35bn over the medium term and an additional $71.4bn in the next 10 years, according to the Board of Peace plan.

The Board of Peace’s high representative, Nikolay Mladenov, said the proposed plan depends on Hamas’s disarmament.

Hamas and other Palestinian factions in July agreed to a document setting out a plan for their disarmament in Gaza, in what United States President Donald Trump has called “a monumental step” towards peace and security.

“I want to be very clear that we are not bound by a calendar,” Mladenov said. “We want to make sure that this works.”

Reporting from the Board of Peace news conference in New York, Al Jazeera’s Kristen Saloomey said “little progress has been made on the ground” in Gaza. “What we’ve been hearing from the experts in this meeting is what a daunting task is ahead,” she said.

While efforts to alleviate the dire conditions in Gaza were endorsed by the international community in July, “Israel has not lived up to its commitment to withdraw its troops on the ground, and so recovery really has yet to begin,” she said.

Continued Israeli attacks

On Wednesday, an Israeli drone attack on a vehicle in the al-Mawasi area near the city of Khan Younis in the south of the coastal enclave killed two people. Medics identified the dead as Osama Abu Khater and Mohammad Abu Elwan.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed in a statement that the attack had killed a senior Hamas finance official.

Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim Al Khalili said that “the situation is going from bad to worse in the wake of these Israeli attacks.”

The attacks are happening near “displacement camps where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians sought refuge, believing that these tents will offer them a sense of normalcy and safety, but ended up being affected by these ongoing ceasefire violations”, he added.

An aerial attack on another vehicle in central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah killed at least two Palestinians, and an additional strike in Gaza City killed at least one more.

A man and a woman also succumbed to wounds sustained from Israeli gunfire in previous days. In Khan Younis, an infant and an elderly woman were both wounded by Israeli gunfire in separate incidents.

Growing diplomatic backlash

Israel’s routine violations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank have drawn a string of condemnations from world leaders convening for UNGA.

On Tuesday, the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Canada criticised Israel for blocking a two-state solution through its policy of illegal settlement in the West Bank and said that the suffering in Gaza had to be alleviated.

UN chief Antonio Guterres denounced Israel’s actions in the Palestinian enclave, adding that “the United Nations need to be allowed to perform our mandates in Gaza.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reaffirmed his country’s commitment to the Gaza ceasefire agreement as a signatory, demanding that reconstruction of the devastated territory must start “as soon as possible”.