Israel and the United Nations signed an agreement on Wednesday for removal of the rubble from 21 Jewish settlements destroyed in Israel’s summer pullout, an Israeli official said.
Yossi Tzemach, spokesman for the Israeli liaison mission with Gaza, said Israel will transfer USD 25 million to the United Nations Development Program, which will bring in Palestinian contractors to remove the rubble.
He said U.N inspectors carried out an environmental check and found that there were no dangerous materials in the rubble. Much of the remains are to be crushed and used in construction projects in Gaza, Tzemach said.
The project will provide jobs for a large number of Palestinians in Gaza, Tzemach said. He did not know when the work would begin.
Israel and the Palestinians failed to finalize the agreement over removal of the rubble before the pullout, initially a unilateral Israeli move. In the months before the withdrawal, Israel and the Palestinians had repeated meetings to try to coordinate aspects of the Israeli exit but arrived at few agreements.
Israel completed the pullout in September. Israeli bulldozers knocked down all the buildings in the settlements, except for the synagogues, and the rubble has remained in place.
_a.jpg "Photo: Efrat Weiss")
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