of Government Activities in the Territories” reviewed UNRWA’s list of sites for Gaza schools and, in “one or two occasions […] [they were] asked to move the location a few hundred meters, since they were [allegedly] near Hamas installations”,198 as a condition for allowing the entry of the necessary construction materials. 199 After Israel’s “Operation Protective Edge”, in summer 2014, Israeli and Palestinian authorities reached an agreement, brokered by the United Nations regarding the reconstruction of Gaza.200 The “Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism”, as it is called, will supposedly “allow for the entry into Gaza of large amounts of basic construction materials (mainly aggregate, cement and metal bars) and machinery (i.e. trucks, tractors, forklifts, buses, diggers, cement and pumps)”.201 Although the details of the mechanism remain so far undisclosed to the general public, journalist Ali Abunimah got further information from one of the attendees of high-level briefing given by Nicholas O’Regan, the country director of the United Nations Office for Project Services, on 14 October 2014.202 According to the journalist, Palestinian households must go through a four stage process in order to rebuild their homes: It begins with a needs assessment for families whose homes were destroyed. Data for each household including confidential information like family ID card numbers, GPS coordinates of the family’s home and other personal information is then put into a database ostensibly under the control of the PA. Once the information is in the database, Israel will be given forty-eight hours to object to any name on the list.203 It seems, therefore, that under the new mechanism, Israel does have a final say204 on the entry of construction material and, more broadly, on the reconstruction of Gaza itself. Such ultimate control of Gaza’s reconstruction amount to a de facto planning policy that, for its arbitrariness, disregard the principles of legality and participation, similarly to Gaza’s self-imposed buffer zones. The same reasoning applies to the blockade itself, which, in addition, constitutes a form of collective punishment, expressly prohibited under 198 Yaakov Katz, “Israel Reviewing UNRWA List of Sites for Gaza Schools.” 199 Bashi and Feldman, Scale of Control, 14. 200 Office of the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process (UNSCO), “Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism - Fact Sheet.” 201 OCHA - Occupied Palestinian Territories, Humanitarian Bulletin: Monthly Report, September 2014, 11. 202 Abunimah, “Under Cover of Reconstruction, UN and PA Become Enforcers of Israel’s Gaza Siege.” 203 Ibid. 204 See also Al Jazeera, “Gaza Plan ‘Relieves Israel of Responsibility.’” 55