First Construction Contract of Gaza Peace Council
The Gaza Peace Council has published its first construction contract for a military outpost that will house 150 soldiers from Morocco, according to a report in The Guardian. The outpost will be built about 1.6 km from the border and will include a rapid evacuation route. The contract was awarded to Arkel International, which has previously done work for the US government. The legal framework for the international stabilization force has not yet been finalized.
The Gaza Peace Council has published its first construction contract for a military outpost that will house 150 soldiers from Morocco, according to a source familiar with the matter who spoke to the British newspaper The Guardian. The contract, which has not yet been finally approved, was awarded to Arkel International, a company that has previously worked for the US government in countries such as Iraq. According to the report, a council official wrote in an email that the council and a team of Palestinian technocrats overseeing Gaza "are in the final stages of preparing several contract awards. None of them have been finalized." The Palestinian group is known as the "National Committee for the Management of Gaza." The official added that "one expected contract concerns services that will support the International Stabilization Force (ISF), which will assist in implementing the security and governance arrangements of the framework." He said, "This contract will be one of many vital to Gaza's future." The planned outpost will be only 100 by 120 meters in size, and is intended to house a unit of Moroccan soldiers who will rotate from a base in Israel, the source told The Guardian. According to him, the outpost will be established in the Strip in an area under Israeli control, about 1.6 km from it, and will have a "rapid evacuation route" in case the small force is attacked. The UN decision that authorized the council approved the establishment of an "international stabilization force" for Gaza, and there have been various reports about which country would provide the soldiers for the force. Morocco has promised a small unit, but the legal framework for the ISF has not yet been finalized and it is unclear when the deployment of the force will begin. The Guardian added that it had seen previous contract plans for Gaza showing that the base in question was the first phase of a plan to establish another military base, which would house 5,000 people, for the ISF. The base, according to the report, had "vehicle fighting positions" and a perimeter battery - or an elevated defensive battery - as well as basic facilities suitable for short-term deployments. The earlier contract stipulated that the first phase would consist of "tents and field beds for the forces to sleep in, as well as chemical toilets and hand-washing stations." It also stated: "At this stage, this is what we consider habitable."