Muslim countries unite to rebuild war-battered Gaza

By Ugur Cil

ANKARA (AA) - The International Commission for the Reconstruction of Gaza has continued to rebuild the blockaded Gaza Strip with the help of several Muslim countries, including Turkey.

Taher al-Masri, commission chairman and former Jordanian prime minister, spoke to Anadolu Agency on Thursday and explained what the commission had accomplished in Gaza in recent years.

“Until today, some $37 million has been invested in Gaza for the construction of schools, mosques, water purification infrastructure and hospitals,” he said.

According to al-Masri, the commission is also concerned about the victims of conflict, the disabled, and displaced persons.

Noting the close cooperation between Turkey and the commission, he said: “Turkey has supported us since 2009 when the organization was first established.”

The Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) began building Palestine’s largest and most sophisticated training and research hospital in 2011.

With a 150-bed capacity, the facility has been dubbed the Turkey-Palestine Companionship Hospital.

Once the needed medical equipment is supplied, the hospital will open sometime next year and will serve the Gaza Strip’s roughly 2 million inhabitants.

With the aim of helping Palestinians who lost their homes during Israel’s devastating 2014 military onslaught on Gaza, TIKA has also completed a number of projects in the field of physical rehabilitation.

Since 2005, when the Palestine Program Coordination Office was opened, TIKA has carried out a total of 113 projects in Gaza.

*Ali Murat Alhas contributed to this report from Ankara