Gaza Reconstruction Offer Deepens Split

President Mahmoud Abbas`s Authority holds sway in the West Bank but has no control in Gaza after Hamas.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Sunday that international donors keen to rebuild the Hamas-run Gaza Strip risk deepening a political rift by ignoring the Palestinian Authority's role.

Fayyad and senior Western diplomats said this week European leaders and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had proposed to the Palestinian Authority setting up an interim international committee that would fund and organise aid directed towards reconstruction of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

"I have a political difficulty with this mechanism. It assumes separation between Gaza and the West Bank will continue, and, in not addressing the issue of separation, it may indeed lead to reinforcing it," Fayyad told Reuters in an interview.

President Mahmoud Abbas's Authority holds sway in the West Bank but has no control in Gaza after Hamas, which won a 2006 parliamentary election, routed Abbas's forces there in 2007.

International donors refuse to deal directly with Hamas in the reconstruction effort until it recognises Israel, ends violence and accepts past peace deals. Repeated Arab efforts to reconcile the two Palestinian factions have failed.

Diplomats believe Hamas would not be interested in reconciliation in the immediate aftermath of its three-week war with Israel in which more than 1,300 Palestinians, including some 700 civilians, were killed. Ten Israeli soldiers were killed as well as three Israeli civilians hit by rockets.

A senior Western diplomat said the proposal had not been meant as a snub to Abbas. "It is meant to be an interim mechanism because the Authority of Mahmoud Abbas is not in control of Gaza and we wanted to speed up the process of Gaza's reconstruction." he said.

"Abbas told us he would not go to Gaza on the back of an Israeli tank, so we thought this would help him return to Gaza and reassert his control there," the diplomat added.

A senior Abbas aide said the Palestinian president had not asked the West to reinstate him in Gaza. Fayyad said Abbas's presence in Gaza could be reasserted only by forming a unity government approved by all factions, including Hamas, that would run both the West Bank and Gaza.

Western powers are cool to any return to a Hamas role in government across the Palestinian Authority, as existed in 2006-2007, unless Hamas meets conditions -- recognising Israel, ending violence and accepting past agreements with Israel.

Fayyad said an initial assessment of the damages to Gaza's infrastructure by Israel's assault was around $1.5 billion and promised making housing the homeless his priority. He wants reconstruction aid to go through the Palestinian Authority.

"Distinction needs to be made between assistance that is required for humanitarian emergency and aid required for reconstruction ... For reconstruction, it should go through the Palestinian Authority," Fayyad said.

But there is no sign of an end to the rift between Abbas and Hamas, making it unclear when such arrangements, with a goal of ending Gaza's economic and social isolation, might work.

"A new unity government would be the first important step towards full national reconciliation," Fayyad said. "Then let us secure the long-demanded international forces to protect our people and help deal with law and order."