By Cynthia Johnston
Gaza - A senior United Nations official appealed to Israel not to carry out a scorched-earth policy if it pulls out of Gaza and urged it to build economic ties to help Palestinians instead.
Peter Hansen, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, said that if Jewish settlements in Gaza were left intact rather than bulldozed, it would be an immediate benefit to suffering Palestinians.
"If all the Palestinians would find on their land are smouldering ruins in the settlements after Israel's withdrawal, I don't think they would be particularly enamoured by that," Hansen said in an interview on Tuesday.
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| 'I don't think they would be particularly enamoured by that' |
Under a unilateral separation plan to be carried out if peace talks fail, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said he plans to uproot 7 500 Israelis living in Gaza settlements scattered among 1,3 million Palestinians.
When Israel withdrew from the Sinai peninsula under a peace treaty with Egypt, then defence-minister Sharon razed the settlement of Yamit in 1982. Like Gaza and the West Bank, Sinai was seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East War.
The UN Relief and Works Agency was set up to help Palestinian refugees who fled their homes during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. It feeds, houses, clothes, educates and provides medical facilities.
Prospects for a Gaza pullout are still hazy as Sharon tries to win backing for the plan from the United States, sceptical Israeli coalition partners and uneasy generals.
Hansen said it was crucial that any withdrawal proceed in an orderly fashion and that Israel continue to open its gates to Palestinian labourers from Gaza, where unemployment is rife.
| 'Prospects for a Gaza pullout are still hazy' |
"It will be necessary to see development here, to give people opportunities to work in Israel," he said.
"If that does not happen, Gaza will still be strangled within one big fence and the sea instead of being strangled at various checkpoints throughout Gaza. It is essential that it is not just Israel leaving and slamming the gate."
Around 17 000 Gazans file into Israel daily for work, where they earn about 200 shekels (about R290) a day, three times the amount they could earn in the Gaza Strip.
Hansen said the Palestinians would have to show their workers posed no risk to Israelis, who have been the targets of deadly suicide bombings by Palestinian militants during the past three years of conflict.
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