TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) – Israel’s powerful transportation and intelligence minister says he is pushing forward with a proposal to build an artificial island with a seaport off the coast of Hamas-ruled Gaza that he believes will alleviate hardship in the blockaded territory and offer residents their first real bridge to the outside world in a decade.
With an independent Palestinian state unlikely anytime soon, Yisrael Katz told The Associated Press that an island for moving goods in and out of Gaza was part of his broader goal of creating regional security and “economic peace” between Israel and its neighbors. The plan has been derided by critics as impractical but presents a bold platform for Katz, who speaks openly of succeeding Benjamin Netanyahu even as the embattled prime minister faces a series of potentially devastating corruption probes.
Katz’s plan calls for an eight-square-kilometer (three-square-mile) island linked to Gaza by a five-kilometer (three-mile) bridge. The island, estimated to cost $5 billion, would take five years to build and include a seaport, a power station, a desalination plant and perhaps a future airport. Israel would supervise security but it would otherwise be run by the Palestinians and the international community – which he says would mark the completion of Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza.
“No Palestinian can oppose this, not Abu Mazen and not Hamas, because it gives them an opening to the world,” Katz said in an interview at his Tel Aviv office. “In an absurd way, we are giving Hamas the keys to the world’s largest prison.”
West Bank-based Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is also known as Abu Mazen.