The Islamist militant organization Hamas, as well as the people in the Gaza Strip, want something big in exchange for a truce with Israel.
They want a seaport. And an airport.
They want movement between their seaside territory and the outside world.
“Everything is ready. We have the engineering studies, the business plans, environmental assessments, all that is needed. You just say the word,” said Ziad Abid, the director general of the Gaza Seaport Authority in the Ministry of Transportation.
Plans for the seaport have been gathering dust for 14 years, Abid acknowledged Monday. “But now is the time,” he said.
Gaza technically has an airport — Yasser Arafat International, named for the late Palestine Liberation Organization leader — but it was shut down in 2001, after Israel bombed the control tower. After three wars, the airfield now resembles a movie set for a disaster film. The last traffic on its cratered tarmac was the Israeli tanks that roared through two weeks ago.
Monday, as the first day of a three-day humanitarian cease-fire held, the Israelis and Palestinians resumed indirect talks in Cairo aimed at securing a longer truce.
There, both sides are listing their demands. Israel seeks the end of indiscriminate rocket fire and tunneling from Gaza into Israel, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ultimately wants the Gaza Strip demilitarized. Hamas and other militant factions in Gaza want an end to the seven-year blockade of the enclave, open commercial and passenger crossings with Egypt and Israel, and the release of Hamas members jailed by Israel in recent military sweeps in the West Bank.
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