HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_032172.jpg

2

Article 1.
NYT
Building Boom in Gaza’s Ruins Belies
Misery That Remains
Ethan Bronner

June 25, 2011 -- GAZA — Two luxury hotels are opening in Gaza
this month. Thousands of new cars are plying the roads. A second
shopping mall — with escalators imported from Israel — will open
next month. Hundreds of homes and two dozen schools are about to
go up. A Hamas-run farm where Jewish settlements once stood is
producing enough fruit that Israeli imports are tapering off.
As pro-Palestinian activists prepare to set sail aboard a flotilla aimed
at maintaining an international spotlight on Gaza and pressure on
Israel, this isolated Palestinian coastal enclave is experiencing its first
real period of economic growth since the siege they are protesting
began in 2007.
“Things are better than a year ago,” said Jamal El-Khoudary,
chairman of the board of the Islamic University, who has led Gaza’s
Popular Committee Against the Siege. “The siege on goods is now 60
to 70 percent over.”
Ala al-Rafati, the economy minister for Hamas, the militant group
that governs Gaza, said in an interview that nearly 1,000 factories are
operating here, and he estimated unemployment at no more than 25
percent after a sharp drop in jobless levels in the first quarter of this
year. “Yesterday alone, the Gaza municipality launched 12 projects
for paving roads, digging wells and making gardens,” he said.
So is that the news from Gaza in mid-2011? Yes, but so is this:
Thousands of homes that were destroyed in the Israeli antirocket
invasion two and a half years ago have not been rebuilt. Hospitals

HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_032172