Solar panels and cleaning up agricultural waste: hundreds of millions will be invested in the environmental restoration of the Gaza Envelope

The enormous damage to the settlements surrounding Gaza also brought an opportunity to create impressive plans for rehabilitation and reconstruction, and to create a region based on clean energy and advanced infrastructure, through government support and careful participation of the residents in decisions.

This is an unusual move, both because the residents themselves are mostly preoccupied with daily worries, and also because the State of Israel has undergone significant privatization processes in recent decades, which reduce the responsibility of the state apparatus towards its citizens.

The restoration of the envelope seems to be one of the exceptions in the landscape. The government decided to assign a directorate to Takuma 3 billion shekels this yearfrom a comprehensive plan of 19 billion shekels in 5 years. The most urgent issue is Temporary solutions for evacueesbut alongside it impressive and significant restoration plans were also woven.

Addition of 5 gigawatts of solar panels

Back in November 2023, the Ministry of Energy presented an ambitious plan for energy resilience and energy production in the surrounding area. The Minister of Energy at the time, Israel Katz (Likud) said at the time: “We will turn the Gaza Envelope into‘Energy island‘ To be a global model of advanced and renewable energy. We will build storage infrastructures, R&D centers, gas infrastructures and more in the envelope“.

the plan included the addition of 5 gigawatts of solar panels – which consume close to 50 thousand dunams. Energy resilience will be achieved thanks to burying power lines in the ground, installing local storage facilities, and local network management, which enables functioning even in situations of disconnection from the national power grid.

Already today there is an allocation for solar panels in the region over nearly 20 thousand dunams – About half of them are in practice, and others are in approval and establishment procedures. Apart from that, the plan also presented an upgrade to the water and sewer infrastructure in the region.

The big question: how to allocate the money between the settlements

The five-year plan she presented Director of Takuma Repeats the political slogan of the President of the United States Joe Biden – Build Back Better – “Rebuild Better”. The plan did not adopt the position of the Ministry of Energy regarding solar fields and the gas infrastructures were also “decreased in focus”, in no small part due to the activity of civil organizations that insisted that the future of the Gaza Strip would not include fuel development fossils.

What remains inside is a significant amount of 300 A million shekels for the benefit of energy independence in the recovery zone. This amount is based on the assumption that solar electricity production is economical anyway, compared to upgrading the grid, protecting transformers and adding storage facilities, which are the areas that are more difficult to finance without support from the state.

In addition, the government decided to allocate 307 million shekels for the restoration of damage to nature and the environment in the enclave area, with 100 million of them coming from the environmental protection ministry’s cleanup fund and other additional budgets already approved in previous government decisions regarding the Gaza enclave.

As far as the government and administration ministries are concerned, there is a great willingness for the localities themselves, through their representatives, to participate in the exact decisions and shaping of the final result, but as of today the residents and the heads of the localities have an urgency to address the immediate needs – Temporary housing solutions, maintaining the community connection between the dispersed residents and taking care of the residents who have returned to live in Otef, but still live under a rocket threat and their day to day is saturated with the sounds of explosions and fighting.

From the point of view of the Ministry of Energy, there is now an opportunity to align all government and civilian agencies, in order to rebuild the infrastructure in the region. A source in the ministry told ‘Davar’ that “it is difficult to say no to projects that come from Tamaka, also because it is unpleasant, and they will not say no if everyone is there – The Ministry of Agriculture, RMI, Environmental Protection – and the question is how to do it, but the implementation is not simple both on the part of the state institutions and on the part of the residents.

“There are farmers from the Otaf who received inquiries about energy and said, ‘We are not there. Our economy will suffer. We are busy with the most basic things.’

The ministry intends to offer consulting services to the localities, which will allow them to form their opinion about the “package” that is suitable for each locality and settlement – Whether it’s burying power lines, storage systems, or adding solar panels on built-up areas. The progress will be gradual, through pilots, when the big question today is how to allocate the money between the localities.

Anlight company and Bezan company “adopted” Kibbutz Nahal Oz

A special case is Kibbutz Nahal Oz. The late Capt. Yeftah Yebetz of Ramat Hasharon, who was killed in the massacre events that took place on October 7 in the fighting in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, is the son of Gilad Yebetz, CEO and founding partner of the Green Energy Company “Anlight“. Together with the fuel company in Zn, Yaebetz Sr. decided to adopt the Nahal Oz community into his heart, and maintains a partnership that will accompany the kibbutz in the restoration process.

In an interview with Mossaf Calcalist he said: “I am happy that close and extraordinary relations have been established with the kibbutz community and its leaders and with the Bezan company led by Major General Moshe Kaplinsky, which is our full partner in the process and made itself available to the kibbutz from the first moment. Me and the people of Nahal Oz will be healed together, with each other’s strengths.”

According to Yaebetz, solar electricity infrastructures and a distributed grid are less vulnerable to rocket attacks compared to the old electricity grid, which is based on large power stations and large power plants, fed by gas rigs, which are themselves a target for attacks.

The Ministry of Environmental Protection has already begun to implement the restoration

The Ministry of Environmental Protection has already started implementing the rehabilitation plans in Otef. Amir Salzberg, director of the southern district of the ministry, tells ‘Davar’ about the environmental restoration process that has already begun, while the fighting continues.

“A fifth of the residents of the Otaf engage in agriculture, and this activity has an environmental impact. The wrap is Israel’s vegetable barn, where 70% of the country’s tomatoes grow, but it also creates agricultural waste that piles up in endless piles throughout the 76 years of the country’s existence. It sometimes burns and causes odor hazards, fires, or the culture of pests. Flushes that come out of barns also harm the environment.”

And what happened from your side?
“Residents who return see that we have begun to clear some of the piles of the past and diverted as much of them as possible to recycling and the place looks different, and to the farmer we offer solutions for future waste. There are places where we were able to convince the director of Takuma to divert resources and there are places where less“.

What about the urban settlements like Sderot?
“We asked for a budget of 60 million shekels for the benefit of environmental restoration in Sderot, in public areas between the housing estates. We received 30 million for this. Apart from that, we also budgeted for the shading of commercial streets. We are working to create a situation where there is a community or urban nature site, so that if I am now a student or a kindergarten teacher or a teacher in Sderot, I can go out to the hill next to the Kiryat Ha’anuchun and do an outdoor class, so that I connect the children to the nature around them and strengthen the sense of belonging to the place“.

What will happen in the yards near the housing estates?
“They will be built there as well Shades, with solar panels and through intensive community work. Residents will have the option to choose what suits them – Some will want benches and ornaments, others will want facilities for children, and somewhere else ninja facilities. Since in previous projects the money was used in full, I believe that this time also in Sderot the budget will be used to the last shekel.”

What is starting to happen?
“What moves faster is what is based on the budget from the cleanup fund, and not from the Takuma administration. We cleared piles of waste and published a tender for waste disposal facilities, so that less waste accumulates in the future.”

What did you want and didn’t budget for? ?
“The Takuma administration is very busy with the restoration of the settlements, and unfortunately we do not have an answer for dealing with damages to areas outside the settlements. When you enter Bari, then the areas and infrastructure in the kibbutz will be restored, but the assembly area outside Bari still looks like a finely ground area, with soil that has been eroded. All over the perimeter, the entry of the army with tanks, snipers And so on“Rains caused severe damage to the land, including in nature reserves. The war makes it inevitable, but we are still looking for a rehabilitative answer to it that currently does not exist”.

At the Heschel Center, they welcomed the government’s decision on the matter of the Takuma administration. Yaara Ben Nahum from the Heshel Center said in response to the article that the decision “contains the necessary elements to produce energy resilience at the level of households and settlements, and through it also increase their economic resilience, and also encourages finding regulatory solutions that will enable this in settlements and cities as well.”

“However, the decision does not refer to the main barrier in the region – the electricity transmission network, which largely prevents the development of solar energy in the region,” Ben Nahum added. “The decision also does not allow support for roofs that include solar systems (such as sports fields), which constitute a significant potential to create renewable energy in the area and are of great benefit to residents and authorities. We hope that the implementation and execution of the decision will be entrusted to officials in the area, thus helping to create quality jobs, and the development of knowledge and excellence in it “.