The five largest European Union members - Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Spain - protested to the Palestinian Authority last week that it was not doing enough to rebuild the Gaza Strip, according to European diplomats and senior Israeli Foreign Ministry officials.



Envoys from the five nations met last Thursday with Alon Ushpiz, a senior diplomat in the Foreign Ministry, for talks focused mainly on the situation in Gaza. During the meeting, which took place at the Foreign Ministry office in Jerusalem, the European representatives surprisingly praised Israel's actions over the past few months to promote reconstruction in Gaza and ease the humanitarian crisis in the Strip.



The Europeans complimented Israel's cooperation with the reconstruction apparatus that the United Nations is operating, Israel's doubling of the water supply to Gaza and the ease on export restrictions from the Gaza Strip to Israel, the West Bank and abroad. The European representatives also requested to increase the scale and pace of transferring goods from Israel to the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza.



The diplomats mentioned they had also met with the PA leadership in Ramallah, the Egyptian leadership in Cairo and a number of Arab governments.



According to a senior official in the Foreign Ministry, the European diplomats remarked the consuls general of their nations held a meeting with senior PA officials several days earlier, in which they conveyed a sharp protest to the PA leadership over the lack of sufficient cooperation in everything regarding reconstruction in Gaza.



A European diplomat familiar with the details of the meetings confirmed that such protest was conveyed. He spoke on condition of anonymity. "They conveyed an unequivocal message that the PA can do more to promote reconstruction in the Strip, and that continued internal political squabbling between Fatah and Hamas are adversely affecting the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the pace and scope of reconstruction," the European diplomat said.

The European diplomat said that in a meeting between representatives of the five EU states and senior officials from the Egyptian foreign ministry in Cairo, the Europeans expressed concern that Egypt is not assisting the reconstruction process in Gaza and is continuing to close the Rafah crossing for extended periods of time.

"They told the Egyptians that we need their cooperation to help bridge the gaps between Fatah and Hamas, and that they are delaying the reconstruction process," the EU diplomat said. At the same time, it is hard to see the Egyptians responding positively in light of the fact that just last week the state court ruled that Hamas is a terrorist organization.

Likewise, diplomats from the five EU powers held talks with a number of Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar, to complain that those countries have yet to invest the hundreds of millions of dollars pledged for Gaza reconstruction, further delaying resolution to the crisis.

"There is positive movement on the Israeli side in everything regarding Gaza," the EU diplomat said. "While you always need more, the Israelis are removing hurdles and assisting reconstruction. At the same time, reconstruction is still stuck because of the internal fights on the Palestinian side, Egyptian behavior and failure to deliver funds pledged by the Arab states. We fear that if nothing will move on Gaza reconstruction, we will find ourselves facing another round of violence in Gaza."

Officials in the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem and EU diplomats said that despite the praises given to Israel regarding Gaza, a large part of the meeting last Thursday dealt with Israel's freezing the transfer of Palestinian tax revenue over the past three months in response to the PA's application to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

The EU diplomats stressed to the Foreign Ministry officials that freezing tax revenues is an illegal step that violates the Oslo Accords, harms Israeli interests and is liable to cause the PA to collapse and reignite violence in the West Bank.