Settlement looters set back Gaza development hopes:
GANEI TAL, Gaza Strip, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Palestinian destruction of greenhouses in vacated Jewish settlements in Gaza has dented hopes of a quick economic windfall from Israel's withdrawal, Palestinian officials said on Wednesday.Is anybody really surprised by this story?They had expected the settlement greenhouses left behind would provide thousands of jobs to boost a meagre job market in Gaza, where unemployment and poverty rates exceed 50 percent.
But looters and revellers converged on the area after Israel's army pulled out on Monday after 38 years of occupation, stripping greenhouses of critical supplies from rubber hoses to water pumps and rendering many of them temporarily unusable. "All of us are angry at the looting that took place. It is a shame. These greenhouses were supposed to be used to feed the children of thousands of families," would-be farmer Abdullah Ali, 32, said of the damage in the former Ganei Tal settlement.
Basil Jaber, chairman of the Palestine Economic Development Company, said looters had damaged about a third of the state-of-the-art hothouses left behind by Israel and donated to the Palestinians by Jewish-American philanthropists.
He had hoped at least 4,000 Palestinians could work at the greenhouses, but only 1,500 had been recruited since Israeli troops left the Gaza settlement bloc on Monday. Even their work has now been suspended pending repairs.
Fearing that the looting has sent the wrong signal to a world that sees Gaza as a testing ground for future Palestinian statehood, security authorities restricted movement into the former Gush Katif settlement area on Wednesday.
Same old death-cult destruction
Posted by Kyer at September 16, 2005 07:22 PM | TrackBack