Qatari envoy: Israel rejected air link with Gaza
Mohammed al-Emadi says Israel has expressed security concerns over building an airport in the enclave; the Jewish State's offer to establish an airport on its side of the border was rejected by Qatar.
In addition, Qatar offered to handle security over the airway to address Israeli concerns.
"They (Israel) said it would be discussed and they procrastinated ... We will renew our request," Qatari Ambassador Al-Emadi told the Gaza-based news agency SAWA.
"The Israeli side had security concerns and we told them we can resolve them by having the planes fly to Doha and return to Gaza from there and under Qatari security supervision," he explained.
Al-Emadi said that Israel had proposed that such an airport be built on its side of the border—an idea the diplomat said had been rejected by Qatar.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), who has been coordinating with Qatar on the Gaza aid efforts, declined comment on Al-Emadi's remarks.
In coordination of Israel and the United Nations, Qatar has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to various Gaza projects that the partners say are designed to stave off Palestinian poverty and prevent escalations in violence.
In 1998, the Palestinians got their first international airport after a the Wye River Memorandum signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority(PA), but Israel destroyed its radar antenna and runway a few months after the September 11th, 2001, attacks on the United States.
The Israeli government deemed it a security threat at the height of the second Palestinian uprising known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada.
Israel says the restrictions are to stop weapons entering the Strip and to isolate the terror group, which has been controlling Gaza's two million population since 2007.
Associated Press contributed to this article.
