Israel Approves $4.9 Billion Plan to Rebuild Gaza-Area Communities

Jerusalem, 11 December, 2023 (TPS) -- Israel’s Cabinet on Sunday approved the outline for a strategic multi-year plan to rebuild communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip.

The plan constitutes a broad budgetary framework for five years (2024-2028) of up to 18 billion shekels ($4.9 billion) intended to lead to the rehabilitation of the region.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “In the area adjacent to the Gaza Strip at the start of the war, we established the Tekuma Authority.” Tekuma is Hebrew for “revival.”

“We provided a massive budget to rebuild the communities and to ensure that nobody will be left behind,” Netanyahu added.

The outline, formulated in cooperation with the local authorities and communities, is designed to lead to the renewal and development of the region with significant demographic growth.

Hamas terrorists attacked more than 20 towns and farming communities, massacring 1,200 on October 7. Around three-quarters of Israel’s vegetables were grown in the farms, kibbutzim and moshavim devastated by the attack and subsequent rocket fire.

The Tekuma framework will make the region “a prosperous and attractive focus and magnet for economic resilience, quality education, investments, and advanced and innovative agriculture,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

With the framework’s approval, the Tekuma Authority will now produce a detailed multi-year, long-term roof plan to be published within 100 days.

Netanyahu said that Israel will ensure that the cities, rural communities and various councils “will flourish and prosper for generations and surpass what was.

“We are committed to investing in education, employment, social services, assistance for evacuees, agriculture, businesses and every field,” he said.

“I would like to commend all those who are engaged in this important work, which we will submit to the government today. The wheat is being sown in the kibbutzim in the area adjacent to the Gaza Strip—and it will grow,” the prime minister said.

At least 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on Oct. 7. Hamas currently holds 137 men, women, children, soldiers and foreigners captive in Gaza. Some people remain unaccounted for as Israeli authorities continue to identify bodies and search for human remains.