GAZA: The United Nations said Thursday that the post-war reconstruction of Gaza would require an international effort unseen since the aftermath of World War II, estimating it could cost up to $40 billion. It came as Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh struck an optimistic tone over a possible truce and captive release deal for Gaza, after weeks of largely stalled negotiations.

There have been reports of sticking points between the militant group and the Zionist entity nearly seven months into the war that has devastated the Palestinian territory. But Haniyeh, head of the militant group’s Qatar-based political bureau, said in calls to Egyptian and Qatari mediators that Hamas was studying the latest proposal with a “positive spirit”.

Much of Gaza has been reduced to a grey landscape of rubble and the United Nations estimated the cost of reconstruction at between $30 billion and $40 billion. “The scale of the destruction is huge and unprecedented... this is a mission that the global community has not dealt with since World War II,” UN assistant secretary-general Abdallah Al-Dardari told a briefing in the Jordanian capital Amman.

The UN official said “72 percent of all residential buildings have been completely or partially destroyed”. Reconstruction is made more difficult by the presence of large quantities of unexploded ordnance in the debris that Gaza’s Civil Defense agency says triggers “more than 10 explosions every week”.

President Gustavo Petro said Wednesday Colombia will sever diplomatic ties with the Zionist entity, whose government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he described as genocidal in its war in Gaza. “Tomorrow (Thursday) diplomatic relations with (the Zionist entity) will be severed... for having a government, for having a president that is genocidal,” Petro, a harsh critic of the devastating war against Hamas, told a May Day rally in Bogota. (See Page 5)

The Zionist entity’s offensive has killed at least 34,596 people in Gaza — mostly women and children — including 28 over the past day, according to the health ministry in the territory. Mediators have proposed a deal that would halt fighting for 40 days and exchange Zionist captives for potentially thousands of Palestinian prisoners, according to details released by Britain.

Before Haniyeh’s comments on Thursday, Hamas officials had given it a generally negative reception. Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told AFP late Wednesday that the movement’s position on the proposal was “negative” for the time being. Another senior Hamas official, Suhail Al-Hindi, said the group’s aim remained an “end to this war” — a goal at odds with the stated position of Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But the group has come under intense pressure from mediators to accept the latest offer.

Regardless of whether a truce is reached, Netanyahu has vowed to send Zionist ground troops into Rafah, despite US opposition to any operation that fails to provide protection for the 1.5 million civilians sheltering in Gaza’s southernmost city. “We will do what is necessary to win and overcome our enemy, including in Rafah,” he pledged at the start of cabinet meeting Thursday.

Separately, Netanyahu told a delegation of Holocaust survivors that Jews should welcome but not expect non-Jewish support and should be ready to “stand alone” if necessary. “If it is possible to recruit Gentiles, that’s good. But if we don’t protect ourselves, no one will protect us,” he told the group at his office.

In response to US pressure, the Zionist entity has allowed increased aid deliveries into Gaza in recent days, including through a reopened crossing. But UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said that “improvements in bringing more aid into Gaza” cannot be used “to prepare for or justify a full-blown military assault on Rafah”.

In south Gaza’s largest city Khan Yunis, foreign aid and borrowed equipment helped to “almost completely” restore the emergency department at Nasser Medical Complex, said its director Atef Al-Hout. Intense fighting raged in mid-February around the hospital, which Zionist tanks and armored vehicles later surrounded. Witnesses and an AFP correspondent reported air strikes on Khan Yunis Thursday and shelling in the Rafah area, while fighters and Zionist troops battled in Gaza City to the north.

In north Gaza, workers unloaded aid at Kamal Adwan Hospital where Alaa Al-Nadi’s son lay motionless in the intensive care unit, his head almost completely swathed in bandages. Nadi, who was also wounded in the strike, said she feared the hospital’s power might go out, cutting the boy’s oxygen and killing him. “I call on the world to transfer my son for treatment abroad. He is in a very bad condition,” she said, breaking down in tears. – AFP