World Bank giving $33.5m to Palestine

The World Bank has agreed to spend an additional $33.5 million for development and reconstruction projects in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. The World Bank's acting director, Dina abu Ghayda, signed documents with the Palestinian Authority's caretaker Prime Minister Salam Fayyad (himself a former World Bank economist) in Ramallah in the central West Bank. The amount includes $21.5 million for six Gaza projects that were severely damaged by the Israeli military assault in January. The Gaza funding comes in addition to the $77.3 million which had already been pledged to these projects before January. The funding for the six projects wil be $3 million for electricity, $5 million for emergency services, $3 million for water, $3 million for municipal services, $3 million for NGOs, and $5 million for higher education. A seventh grant was also signed for $12 million to fund a project for treating solid waste in Bethlehem and Hebron (al-Khalil) in the southern part of the occupied West Bank. According to the World Bank, all the projects are to be administered by the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas, and address the recovery needs of the poorer segments of the Gaza population. The Gaza Strip's 1.5 million people have suffered from the effects of a devastating blockade by Israel and Egypt since Hamas won the democratic election in 2006. Their suffering was increased as a result of the Israeli blitz against the territory at the beginning of this year, which resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties and serious damage to infrastructure.