The United States has demanded in recent days that Israel take financial responsibility for clearing the vast amounts of rubble across the Gaza Strip and oversee the enormous engineering operation required, according to a Ynet report citing a senior Israeli official.

Israel has agreed to the request, the report says, despite the projected cost reaching as high as one billion shekels. The Prime Minister’s Office has declined to comment on the matter.

The scale of destruction is immense. According to The Wall Street Journal, there are an estimated 68 million tons of debris in Gaza, a figure based on data from the UN Development Program.

Meanwhile, Qatar has publicly ruled out funding Gaza’s reconstruction. Speaking Sunday during an onstage interview at the Doha Forum, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Abdulrahman Al Thani made his position clear. “We are not the ones who are going to write the check to rebuild what others destroyed,” Al Thani said. “When you are talking about Gaza, Israel flattened this land.”

The Ynet report also notes growing diplomatic pressure on Israel regarding Gaza’s future governance and security. US Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack is expected to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week in an effort to persuade Israel to accept Turkish troops operating in Gaza — a proposal Israel has firmly rejected.

According to the senior Israeli official quoted in the report, US discussions with Israel are now focusing more heavily on reconstruction efforts and far less on the dismantling of Hamas. Netanyahu, in private conversations, has reportedly acknowledged that disarming Hamas will ultimately fall to Israeli forces themselves.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)