Gaza is becoming more and more cut off from the rest of the Palestinian territories as hopes of sealing a Fatah-Hamas unity deal fade, Palestinian premier Salam Fayyad has warned. "With each day that passes without practical steps towards achieving reconciliation, Gaza is starting to become a distinct entity," he told reporters late on Monday.
"Not a country nor sovereign territory, only a distinct entity." And in parallel, hopes of achieving a Palestinian state were also fading as it was not possible to have an independent state in the West Bank alone, he said. "There is no Palestinian state without Gaza," he admitted.
"A Palestinian state is an Israeli interest because people who promote the two-state solution know it depends on demographic issues, especially as estimates say that Palestinians will outnumber Jews living in historical Palestine by 2020." Projections show Israel is rapidly losing the "demographic battle" against the Palestinians who are set to outnumber Jews in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean within a matter of years.
Official statistics show there are currently some 5.9 million Jews living in Israel and the occupied territories, compared with 5.8 million Palestinian Arabs: 1.6 million Arab Israelis, 2.6 million Palestinians in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and 1.6 million in Gaza. But if Gaza became further cut off from the rest of the Palestinian territories, it would ease the demographic pressure on Israel by "removing" Gaza's population from the equation, and thereby undermine Israeli support for the two-state solution, he said.
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