A massive UN-supervised project to rebuild Gaza got underway earlier last week, but officials in Gaza and Ramallah are already doubtful that it will bring immediate aid to residents of the battered strip. The reconstruction plan calls for a highly intricate monitoring system, with restrictive measures on the import and distribution of building materials. This comes at the behest of the Israelis, who have long barred the entry of basic construction materials - including cement, metal pipes and steel - into Gaza, insisting that they are 'dual use' items that Hamas could use to build underground tunnels for military purposes.

An astonishing editorial. The underlying assumptions are that i) Israel's devastating reprisal raids are the Palestinians own fault, ii) Israel has no choice but to inflict crippling damage to Palestinian infrastructure during its raids (the article doesn't mention all the helpless Palestinians killed and maimed, but we're talking infrastructure here), and iii) if Palestinians would just stop reacting to Israeli assassinations and mass arrests, Israel would stop pushing Palestinians off their land in order to build new settlements ("ethnic cleansing" anywhere else in the world) and begin good-faith negotiations on a two-state solution.

Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and several Palestinian ministers entered the Gaza Strip on Thursday to attend the first unity government meeting, marking the end of more than seven years of absolute Hamas control of the coastal territory. The Palestinian ministers from the West Bank reached the Strip via the Erez Crossing between Israel and the Strip, after receiving permits from Israel. The issuing of permits marked a reversal of the Israeli government's declaration, made after the Palestinian government was formed, that it would not allow members to cross Israeli territory.

A UN-sponsored agreement for the reconstruction of Gaza is facing sharp criticism from senior international officials and NGOs, who say it will create a restrictive new monitoring regime for building materials that risks putting the UN in charge of a continuing Israeli blockade. At the centre of the row is Israel s insistence that basic goods such as cement, bricks and steel reinforcing - which it says have in the past been diverted by Hamas to build infiltration tunnels and bunkers - are 'dual-use' materials with a military application.

The United Nations, Israel and the Palestinian Authority have reached a stopgap deal to allow reconstruction work to begin in the war-torn Gaza Strip, U.N. Middle East envoy Robert Serry said on Tuesday. The deal came as a World Bank report outlined dire economic prospects for Palestinians after the July-August conflict with Israel. The U.N.-sponsored reconstruction agreement could help curb Palestinian economic deterioration in Gaza, which since 2007 has been controlled by Hamas.