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Liberman's airport comment not so ridiculous, says Gaza activist

Though a UN envoy dismissed Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman's recent claim that Israel would be the "first to invest" in a Gaza airport as a "distraction," coverage of the minister’s remarks has drawn attention to a proposed UN-administered facility approved by both Hamas and the Palestinian president.
A Palestinian boy herds sheep in front of the ruins of Yasser Arafat International Airport, which was bombed by Israel in the past, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip February 5, 2016. Nabil Shurafa's travel agency in Gaza was once packed with clients booking flights to London, Paris, New York or cities across the Arab world. These days, he's lucky if anyone comes in, as so few people can get out. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa   - RTX25KVS
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Few Israelis understood why their hard-line defense minister would even talk about a seaport and an airport in Gaza.

In an Oct. 24 interview with the widely circulated Palestinian daily Al-Quds, Avigdor Liberman offered the formula for a possible Gazan port and airport. “If they make the decision to stop digging tunnels, smuggling arms and firing rockets at us, we will be the first to invest in a port, an airport and industrial areas.”

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