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Team Gaza Initiative launched
The European Commission announced the launch of the “Team Gaza Initiative,” a joint effort with 15 partners to provide €883.6 million (about $1 billion) for recovery efforts in the Gaza Strip.
“provide €883.6 million (about $1 billion) in assistance”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “Heartwarming to see the success of our second Palestine Donor Group meeting today, with 65 participating countries and institutions,” as Dubravka Suica described the initiative’s goal to support early recovery “in a co-ordinated way”.
The initiative is intended to coordinate early recovery projects aimed at restoring basic services for the population, including water and sanitation infrastructure, the removal of debris, and restoration of health, energy, agriculture and food systems.
The European Commission said the initiative brings together the UK, France, Spain, Denmark, Germany, Norway, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden and Belgium, as well as the World Bank and the European Investment Bank.
The UK separately announced a £10 million ($13.4 million) donation to the UN Horizon Fund to enable a Palestinian-led, UN-co-ordinated approach to early recovery working alongside key European and international partners.
Conditions and competing demands
UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said, “Palestinians in Gaza need to be able to rebuild their lives and their communities,” while warning that “the pace of support despite all the promises made in the peace plan is still shockingly slow.”
Cooper added that “the scale of continuing Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid and on basic shelter and healthcare support is deeply destructive and immoral,” as the UK said it would provide £10 million ($12 million) to support early recovery efforts in Gaza.
The EU said donors want to start with so-called early recovery, but Dubravka Suica said, “to do that, we need disarmament of Hamas in order to start proper recovery,” linking recovery conditions to Hamas disarmament.
The Times of Israel reported that Suica said the EU had reached agreement with the Israeli authorities on next steps for two major projects in the areas of waste and water management in Gaza.
The Eastern Herald described the fund as equivalent to approximately 900 million euros and said it was earmarked for water and sanitation infrastructure, debris clearance, health system restoration, energy networks, and agricultural supply chains.
What comes next for Gaza
The EU’s Team Gaza Initiative is framed as early recovery, but multiple sources tied the ability to deliver assistance to conditions on the ground and the status of ceasefire implementation.
“Reconstruction cannot meaningfully begin while active military activity continues”
The Eastern Herald said reconstruction cannot meaningfully begin while active military activity continues in any portion of the territory, and it reported that debris removal alone requires access corridors that do not yet exist for heavy equipment.
The Eastern Herald also said the Gaza Health Ministry has reported the death toll from the genocide exceeding 75,000, and it described Gaza’s pre-war economic output as having been erased by more than two years of Israeli bombardment and a sustained blockade.
The National reported that donors in Brussels raised €41.7 million for a special EU mechanism to channel funds to the Palestinian Authority, which is threatened by bankruptcy as its revenue remain blocked by the Israeli government.
The Eastern Herald said the Team Gaza Initiative has no official Gaza-side counterpart through which to disburse funds, and it noted that the Palestinian Authority administers portions of the West Bank while Hamas governed Gaza before the war began.