The Palestinian Authority has planned the construction of an international airport near Jerusalem and a port in the Gaza Strip, ArabNews reports quoting Palestinian Minister of Transport Sa’di Al-Krunz.
The port will be built on the shores of Sheikh Ijleen in the southern Gaza Strip. Al-Krunz said that France and the Netherlands had agreed to finance the project.
Al-Krunz said that the airport would be built in the Al-Bqai’a area between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Bethlehem. The airport project worth $340m had received the go-ahead from the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
Tens of donor countries pledged more than $4.4 billion to rebuild the war-torn territory in a conference held in Sharm El-Sheikh in March 2009. But nothing happened on the ground until now because of intra-Palestinian strife as well as the Israeli siege of the coastal strip.
The Palestinian Ministry of National Economy said in September that the PA had lost up to $1.9 billion in lost revenue due to the siege of the Gaza Strip.