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Turkey to finance residential neighborhood for Gazans

Xinhua, February 4, 2016 Adjust font size:

Turkey will finance the construction of a housing neighborhood for poverty-stricken Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, said officials Thursday.

The Palestinian minister of housing and public works in the consensus government, Mofeed Hassaynah, signed an agreement Thursday with representatives from the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Corporation, to finance construction in Gaza.

According to the agreement, the Turkish corporation will allocate 4 million U.S. dollars for a residential neighborhood for poor and orphaned Gazan citizens, who have been under an Israeli blockade since 2006.

During the agreement's signing ceremony, Hassaynah said that the Turkish-financed project will include 132 residential units.

Mohamed Kayya, representative of the Turkish corporation, said Turkey would continue supporting Palestinians through various services.

Sa'eed Ammar, deputy minister of the housing ministry, told Xinhua that the project, to be built in southeast Gaza, would serve Gazans from all over the Strip.

"The project will commence in two months following finalization of all technical measures," said Ammar.

He said the Turkish-funded project is not among those allocated for the reconstruction of Gaza Strip homes destroyed by Israel during its 2014 offensive.

However, the Turkish project needs Israel's approval to ship in raw materials needed for construction, Ammar said.

The Gaza Strip suffers from a housing shortage of 130,000 residential units, due to the Israeli blockade and a dearth of raw materials.

Also on Thursday, Germany and the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) signed a 56-million-euro (62.7-million-dollar) cooperation agreement in Ramallah.

The deal, signed by Reyad al-Malki, the PNA's minister of foreign affairs, and Peter Beerwerth, Germany's representative in the Palestinian territories, would help fund various projects in the territories.

Germany is a primary donor, which accounted for the lion's share regarding financing projects in the Palestinian territories.

The projects consist mainly of residential units, schools and infrastructure, in cooperation with both the PNA and the United Nations. Endit