Gazans Hope U.S. Leader Pushes Israel to Relax Grip

BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip -- Majid Jumeh's house, damaged by the Israeli army during a three-week war in January, is down to a kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom, his eight-member family jammed into those bits of livable space wrapped around a rubble pile.

"We are living in a corridor and a bedroom," said Jumeh, 46, who before the war had a steady income from a grocery -- also destroyed, he said -- and a roomy house. "We used to be at a good level. Now look at us."

The United States, Saudi Arabia and other countries have pledged more than $5 billion in aid for Gaza's reconstruction. But no repairs have been made to Jumeh's house or thousands of other war-damaged buildings because Israel refuses to permit construction materials into the 25-mile-long seaside strip as long as it is under the control of the Islamist movement Hamas.

Since taking office in late March, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has said little about how he intends to handle Gaza, insisting that he needed to conduct a full policy review of Palestinian issues. The unofficial clock on that review runs out on Monday, when Netanyahu and President Obama are scheduled to hold their first face-to-face meeting in Washington.

International aid experts and diplomats say they realize that if reconstruction money pours into Gaza, it could strengthen Hamas politically and financially. But they also worry that if there is no change in the dire circumstances of most Gazans, the situation simply will build to another violent outbreak like the one in January, when Israel responded to rocket fire from Gaza by ordering airstrikes and sending in ground troops.

Many relief workers, construction firms and Gazans like Jumeh are hoping that Obama will prod Netanyahu to loosen Israel's grip.

"Israel has its hand on the tap, and they are going to hover a millimeter above destitution until the political reality changes," said Christopher Gunness, spokesman for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which coordinates food and other aid in the strip.

The U.N. agency has requested industrial-level quantities of a dozen different materials, including 148,000 tons of cement and 23,000 tons of steel, to rebuild an estimated 3,500 war-damaged homes and make repairs on 30,000 others. But Israel restricts the import of such material, and Israeli officials say they will maintain the embargo until they are certain that shipments into Gaza will not benefit Hamas.

No Public Push From U.S.

So far, the United States, which considers Hamas a terrorist organization, has not publicly pushed Israel to allow reconstruction to proceed. Arab states, which generally support the Palestinian Authority that controls the West Bank and is a rival to Hamas, have also remained relatively mute. Egypt's border with Gaza is closed, and while the smuggling of food and other supplies is rampant, officials in Cairo have tightened policing in recent months to curb arms shipments.

Israel may face demands "to relieve some of the specific issues, but there is no evidence there is a workable plan" for widespread rebuilding in Gaza, said Gerald Steinberg, chairman of the political science department at Bar-Ilan University. "Without that, there is not so much pressure. Nobody wants to deal with Gaza in a way that will strengthen Hamas."

Regular shipments of humanitarian aid and commercial goods such as sugar are allowed into Gaza under the Israeli rules. Supplemented by smuggled goods, the imports are enough, U.N. officials say, to keep Gaza's 1.5 million people from facing a full-fledged humanitarian crisis.

Throughout the strip, corner stands still offer fruits and vegetables, and grocery shelves hold a wide array of goods. Merchants say Israeli-authorized necessities come through formal import channels, while non-staples, such as Snickers candy bars and Saudi-made instant soup, are supplied by the smugglers.