Fatah and Hamas blowing up each others' cars in Gaza (update)

International aid pledged to rebuild Gaza has not been forthcoming:

Donors have been urged to meet their financial pledges to fund the reconstruction of Gaza following the conflict with Israel last year.

The appeal was made by the UN deputy head of political affairs, Jens Toyberg-Frandzen during a briefing to the Security Council on Thursday.

Last year, international donors pledged US$5.4 billion at a conference held in Cairo Egypt.

"Most pressingly, donors have largely failed to fulfil their pledges, three months after the Cairo conference. This has severely handicapped the ability of the Government of Palestine, the United Nations and other development actors on the ground to make significant progress on recovery and reconstruction work. The importance of donors urgently meeting their pledges cannot be overstated."

One of the major reasons is that Fatah and Hamas are attacking each other.

On Tuesday:

Unidentified assailants blew up a private car belonging to a security officer of the former Hamas-run government in Gaza City early on Tuesday morning.

Initial investigations suggest that an improvised explosive device was set under the vehicle which was parked in front of the officer's house.

Today:

Unidentified assailants blew up a car belonging to a Fatah leader in Gaza City early Thursday.

Witnesses told a Ma'an reporter that a vehicle belonging to Ahmad Alwan went up in flames after a flammable substance was poured on it.

The incident is the latest in a series of attacks on the cars and homes of Fatah leaders in the Gaza Strip, where many are angry over the failure of the Fatah-dominated PA to hold Israel accountable for its promises to ease the blockade.

But even though the blame for the current Gaza problems is squarely because of infighting and the donors' reluctance to send money to kleptocrats and terrorists in Gaza, Hamas still stages photo-ops to blame Israel.

Dozens of Palestinian children protested against the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip at the coastal enclave's port on Wednesday, hoping to highlight the effects of a blockade entering its eight year.

The protest came as part of a series of rallies across the Gaza Strip designed to draw attention to the Israeli siege and how it has prevented the reconstruction of Gaza in the wake of Israel's 50-day summer war that destroyed tens of thousands of homes.

Israel is transferring whatever materials that are being paid for. The issue is the money, not any Israeli "siege." And the money isn't coming because Hamas and the PA are playing power games.

Good luck getting the media (and NGOs) to push back on the false "siege" narrative, though.

UPDATE: Buzzfeed had this earlier this week:

A U.N. spokesman told BuzzFeed News that out of $5.4 billion pledged to Gaza following the war, only $100 million has actually been delivered.

During the conference in Cairo in October 2014, Qatar promised $USD 1 billion and Saudi Arabia $USD 500 million. The United States and the European Union pledged a combined $USD 780 million. Along with a myriad of other Arab States, the total in pledged funds was $5.4 billion – of this total, only $100 million has been received. All of it, said U.N. officials, has come from European states.
“The Arab countries haven’t paid anything until now,” Mufeed al-Hasayna, the Palestinian housing minister, told Reuters last month. “The Europeans just a few millions, maybe something from the Swedes.”

Representatives from donor states would not comment on the lack of delivered funds when contacted by BuzzFeed News. One, who only spoke off-record, said it had become increasingly difficult to transfer money to the Gaza Strip due to the lack of progress made in reconciliation between Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, and the western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA), in the West Bank.