UNITED NATIONS, September 16 (RIA Novosti) - Three weeks after Israel and Hamas reached a ceasefire agreement, the UN Secretary General's special coordinator to the Palestinian authority, Robert Serry said Tuesday that both sides and the United Nations have agreed to start reconstruction of the territories, racked by war.
Serry told the UN Security Council his office had "brokered a trilateral agreement between Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the UN to enable work at the scale required in the Gaza Strip," which provides "security assurances through UN monitoring that these materials will not be diverted from their entirely civilian purpose."
The UN official also added that he hopes "this temporary mechanism will also help increase donor confidence that investment in construction and reconstruction work will be implemented expeditiously."
Serry than urged the UN Security council to "make its own position clear," which he said would be "a welcome step of confidence, commitment and hope at a time when the parties and the world desperately need it."
"When I warn that Gaza could implode, or explode again, or the two-state paradigm could slip irreversibly away, I do not believe I am crying wolf. This Council should not under-estimate the dangers," Ban Ki-moon's representative in the Palestinian authority underscored.
In July, Tel Aviv launched a military operation against the Hamas movement which lasted 50 days. The military action included airstrikes and ground offensives, aimed at destroying a system of tunnels allegedly used by Palestinian militants to enter Israel. According to UN estimates, the conflict has killed over 2,100 Palestinians and 71 Israelis .
