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Israel Pays UN for Gaza War Damage
Israel has paid $10.5m to the United Nations for property damage and injuries the world body suffered during Israel's war on Gaza a year ago, officials have said.
A Palestinian family walks past the rubble of a mosque that was destroyed during Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip, in al-Zaitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City in 2009. Israel has paid the United Nations some 10.5 million dollars in damages following its assault on the Gaza Strip last year, UN officials said Friday.
(AFP/File/Mohammed Abed) "With this payment, the United Nations has agreed that the financial
issues relating to those incidents ... are concluded," Martin Nesirky,
a UN spokesman, said on Friday.
A senior Israeli diplomat at the UN, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "We have decided to make an ex gratia [without liability] payment to the United Nations and we have indeed done it."
A total of 53 installations used by the United Nations Relief and Works agency were damaged or destroyed during Israel's Gaza campaign including 37 schools, six health centres, and two warehouses.
Aid destroyed
The main damage to UN property came on January 15 when Israeli shells hit a UN compound, setting fire to a warehouse and destroying badly-needed food and medical aid.
UN officials say they have evidence that white phosphorous, a smokescreen agent that can cause severe burns, was used in the attack that left three people injured.
Israel said Hamas fighters had used the compound to launch attacks on its forces but later apologised for the incident.
A UN inquiry last year put the cost of damage to seven UN buildings in Gaza during the 22-day assault at $11.2m, almost all of it caused by Israeli forces.
Loss adjusters hired by the UN subsequently reduced that by $750,000, Nesirky said.
Nesirky said the UN's compensation claims related both to the property damage and to minor injuries suffered by 11 employees.
Israel's onslaught on Gaza killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and left much of the territory in ruins. A total of 13 Israelis were killed during the conflict.
Source: Agencies- Posted in
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21 Comments so far
Show All"A total of 53 installations used by the United Nations Relief and Works agency were damaged or destroyed during Israel's Gaza campaign including 37 schools, six health centres, and two warehouses..."
- and only $10.5 million was awarded? What were they made of? cardboard?
- and will Israel let the UN rebuild? Israel won't even let crayons get into Gaza.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sanjeev-bery/israels-ban-on-crayons_b_217215.html
Yes, this Chump Change is an international insult. Our 'men of the year' treasury looters take home more than this as a bonus each year.
Ultimately, the U.S. taxpayer is actually paying for it. Israel never really pays for anything.
Is this Sick or what !?! There is Billions of dollars in damage ? Let the International Relief Agencys In ! This situation is, at least, as bad as what the NAZIs did in the Extermination Camps. Expell the Israelis from the Body Politic - UN. No more Import$ or Export$. Cut them Off totally to compell compliance. Hear that US & EU Politicians ?!?
There, nuff said.
Israel should just add the sum to the already massive reparations the Palestinians owe them for their illegal war. It's utterly scandalous that the Israelis are expected to pay for damages caused by Palestinian anti-semitism. All Israel was doing was acting in self-defense, just as any other nation would (and has). There wouldn't have been any damages at all if the Palestinians did not continually violate international law and refuse to recognize Israel. We all know that this war is about the Palestinians desire to steal and occupy Israeli land and to murder all Jews. When is the UN going to face up to the anti-semites and begin doing its job??? How much longer will this travesty continue?
And the Goldstone report specifically found that the Palestinians committed numerous war crimes. When is the UN going to prosecute them, and demand compensation to the Jewish victims? Why is international law being ignored here?
Yes, in your world, the sky green, and the moon is square and the sun is blue....You are a pathetic zionist!
He may be a zionist, but there is blame enough for both sides here. Everyone needs to lay down arms and start negotiating. Peace is a fundamental prerequisite to justice. You cannot have the one without the other.
We should not be funding Israel for a shekel, but we need to get Hamas and Fatah to stop shooting as well. It has to be evenhanded, and from the comments here, that is not even desired.
it is not a situation of two equal sides.
you need to get your blinders off please...
I have the perfect solution to Mikep's problem :
Isrealis and Palestinian do a complete exchange of land, wealth, armaments,allies and polices.
Then according to Mikep argument he would no longer to be able to falsely whine about being a victim.
I am sure he will love having 500 zionists murdered for every Palestinian killed.
Mikep:
Get a life.
And how many billions have our genocidal monsters given these genocidal monsters to slaughter the innocents? They're all stocked up on WMDs to work carnage on the women and children of Lebanon again.
a nation of 7 million io allowed to have 200 atomic bombs, and a slew of other nuclear devices, including hydrogen and neutron bombs? the same nation threatens to annihilate the arabs countries with populations in the hundreds of millions if any should develop even a tenth of the nuclear weaponry israel holds? look up the name modechai vanunu on the internet, and see how many nuclear weapons that he, as an engineer at israel's dimona nuclear facility, saw. then read j.f.k.'s letter to david ben gurion, written in 1963 to warn israel against developing nuclear weapons and demanding that it open its dimona plant up to inspection by u.s. scientists. if j.f.k. had lived, we would now have an even handed policy in the middle east. gas would be $2 a gallon and israel would be the small and contained country that it should have remained. no wonder george marshall went apoplectic when truman recognized israel. marshall foresaw how israel would always be a thorn in the side of the united states and impair our ability to deal fairly with oil-rich arab countries. he was right.
I'm glad this is settled.
There will be peace now.
Such a HUGH sum of money...$10.5 MILLION. Nice Joke. And to make the mockery even worse is that large engineering firms from the US will be brought in along with the likes of Bechtel and Haliburton to do the actual re-construction (if they are lucky enough to get anyone at all) to suck all the money BACK to the US. Gaza won't see a dime.
"A total of 13 Israelis were killed during the conflict."
Well not quite. Four were killed by 'friendly fire' so the score was actually 1,400 to 9, almost 200 to one. But Israel was defending itself against those thousands of missiles that the Palestinians fired into Israel. In the year prior to the Israeli offensive 0 (zero) Israeli's were killed by this missile onslaught. Etc. etc. etc.
This has all to do with the extensive protective measures Israel put in place. This contrasts sharply with Hamas firing rockets from crowded neighborhoods, placing weapons caches in schools and mosques, and setting up their headquarters in an Israeli-built hospital.
I also think your statistics are wrong, though I'm not going to go looking for what Israel reported. I do notice that you don't mention any of the Hamas-inflicted deaths on Palestinians. Remember, they used the conflict as an excuse to clean house, shooting the kneecaps off Fatah members when not tossing their refugee brothers off buildings.
It's true, the money used is our money, and if any goes to Gaza, it will be very little. There will never be peace because, to Israel--- peace is to occupy ALL the land that really belongs to thePalestinians.
With a certain group it is always about the money. Nor are they ever guilty of anything except being the most picked upon group in the entire existence of mankind, just ask any Israeli. Israel's greatest act of smoke and mirrors will come on "International Hollow-cost Day" this Wednesday when they claim that the Goldstone report, (the U.N. Human Rights Report that was written by a Jew) is anti-semitic. The U.S. and most of the E.U. will certainly have no trouble buying that line of garbage. Come on, Naomi Klein, Norman Finklestein, and Noam Chomsky are all self hating anti-semitic Jews and Judge Goldstone is just the most recent card carrying anti-semite to join their ranks. How hard is that to swallow? Not very if you're a member of the current crowd on Capitol Hill.
So you're saying Jews are always about the money? Just checking because, well, that sounds antisemitic to me. I must be crazy.
And how about compensating the Gazans??? Israel owes a lot more and should be made to pay.