It cost more than 230 million dollarsand after just two months of intermittent activity which resulted in the landing of supplies equivalent to two days’ food rations needed to feed the population of Gazawas first damaged, then rendered unusable by the weak winds that blow on the Mediterranean, becoming yet another symbol of an international failure and in this specific case an American one, in the Gaza Strip. More than a floating dock, it has proven to be a resounding flop, incapable of replacing even for a single day the columns and convoys of trucks that until now have averted the risk of a famine in the Strip, under siege by Israel after the terrorist attack by Hamas on Israeli territory.
In Gaza, there is also an airport that doesn’t exist
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These two infrastructures, the food supply pier and the airport, provide an extraordinarily emblematic premise to the desired failure of a historic yet forgotten (and to most unknown) opportunity to transform the Gaza Strip into one of the richest areas of the Arab world, comparable in every way to the United Arab Emirates.
The project that would change the Middle East
The document, after an analysis of the morphological characteristics of the Strip, the economic and social conditions, translates into a concrete proposal that in the following months will become the subject of negotiations on the ground, will obtain the green light from Israel but will be rejected by the Palestinian National Authority.
The plan is based on the creation of an industrial free zone to be located between the southern areas of the Gaza Strip and the border areas of Sinai, recently returned by Israel to Egypt, near the city of Yamit built by the Israelis on the Mediterranean coast of Sinai. In a first phase, the project that requires authorization from the Egyptian government provides for the rental of Egyptian desert areas (40 square kilometers) to a free industrial zone consortium with Palestinian governance. In the initial phase, security (paradoxically in the area later used intensively to build the Hamas tunnels) is entrusted to the Egyptians, but the industrial zone is expected to create 40,000 jobs with permanent contracts and another 5,000 among managers, administrators, technicians.
According to the study, Gaza occupies a strategic corner of the Mediterranean, has low-cost land, preferential access (at the time) to European and American markets, low cost of energy and raw materials, and an exceptional logistical position.
A free zone between the Gaza Strip and Sinai
The first phase includes the construction of an 8 km industrial area between Rapha And Yami in Sinai. The second phase includes the construction of an airport runway suspended over the sea connected to a highway and a temporary airport to be used as a base for phase three. And this is the most fascinating phase. The construction of an artificial island of two square kilometers to host a large container port. Each infrastructure is connected and synergic with the others, as part of a unique project in the Mediterranean intended to make the Gaza Strip the operational base for commercial exchange by sea on the route between Asia and Europe. Total cost just over a billion dollars.
Full employment from industry, logistics and port
The final result is sensational: full employment in the Strip for industrial, logistics and maritime-port activities. Development of a financial center linked to the Free Zone, development of international trade; constant growth and use of Egyptian cross-border workers, research activities and high-level training centers.
Companies in the automotive sector, large construction companies, companies in the advanced electronics and biomedical sectors, groups in the energy and food sectors have immediately confirmed their interest in the project, with a parallel project to reuse the underground water that Gaza still has (Israel provides less than 20% of the Strip’s water needs) for the development of intensive agriculture in the north, as well as the tourist industry favored by one of the most fascinating beaches in the Mediterranean.
All financed by the international community. All rejected by the Palestinian National Authority with the support of many Arab countries. Hamas tunnels are better.