Israel wants someone to build a $5 billion island off Gaza — for a sea: port, hotels, airport : VIDEO

Israel wants someone to build a $5 billion island off Gaza — for a seaport, hotels, airport

The Ministry of Transportation and Israel Ports, headed by Minister Israel Katz, has drawn up plans

 for how a seaport and airport built on an artificial island off the coast of the Gaza Strip would look. 

Ministry of Transportation and Israel Ports)

By William Booth and Ellen Nakashima June 20 at 12:27 PM 

JERUSALEM — The Israeli government is considering a proposal to build an artificial island off the Gaza Strip that a top official says would give Palestinians living in the besieged enclave their one and only seaport — and maybe a hotel and an international airport, too.

The Israeli minister of intelligence who is promoting the plan, Israel Katz, said the Jewish state is actively seeking financial partners for the $5 billion project.

Katz mentioned the Saudis and Chinese as possible builders of the port — or maybe a mysterious Israeli entrepreneur. He declined to name names.

Why would the Saudi monarch construct a billion-dollar seaport-hotel a few miles from the Zionists’ coast — when the two governments have no formal relations? That’s unknown.

Katz insisted the project is no fantasy island.

Palestinians swim in the Mediterranean Sea off the 

coast of Gaza City. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters)

He said the plan is being debated in Israel’s security cabinet, where he said it has deep support. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is exploring the option but has not yet made a determination,” said an Israeli official involved in the talks. The intelligence minister said he has briefed Obama administration officials on the proposal.

[Airbnb slammed for offering rooms with a view in Jewish settlements]

The Israelis envision the port complex to be constructed atop a man-made island — dredged with sand from the sea bottom, measuring four square miles — that would be located three miles offshore and connected to the mainland by a two-lane bridge.

In Israel’s planning, the bridge is the crucial component in the scheme, allowing access to the port to be tightly controlled.

A bridge could be closed during hostilities — and though the Israelis don’t say this, a section could be blown up in an Israeli airstrike during a war, cutting off the harbor.

Skeptics call the Gaza island proposal farfetched. Critics describe it as another attempt by Israel to blunt criticism over the moribund peace process with the Palestinians and the decade-long trade and travel restrictions that Israel has imposed on Gaza since the Islamist militant movement Hamas took the enclave in 2007.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israel-wants-someone-to-build-a-5-billion-island-off-gaza--for-a-seaport-hotels-airport/2016/06/20/e45ce6fc-7948-4a10-bef3-0f782b030739_story.html

 

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