Donors pledge over 5 billion USD for reconstruction of Gaza Strip

A donor conference with delegates representing around 50 nations in Cairo, Egypt, ended with pledges of around US $5.4 billion, announced the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Boerge Brende. The funds were raised to aid the Gaza Strip following the war between Israel and Hamas earlier this year.

Brende said that US $2.7 billion would be "dedicated" to work in Gaza, without specifying what the remaining half would be used for. The sum exceeded the US $4 billion requested by the Palestinian Authority for reconstruction efforts. Israel was not invited to the conference.

Though the pledges made by each country numbered in several million each, the biggest contributor was the small energy-rich nation of Qatar.

Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah, in announcing his country's pledge of US $1 billion, denounced the "international silence" that surrounded Gaza's destruction.

"While the Palestinian people need financial support, they need more political support from the international community," he said. "A just peace is the only real guarantee for not destroying what we are about to rebuild and reconstruct."

Other countries that made pledges include the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, France, Saudi Arabia, Germany and England, several of whom entreated Israel to work towards a lasting peace. Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had said earlier that any rebuilding efforts would require his government's consent. "You can't reconstruct Gaza without Israeli participation and without Israeli cooperation," he told news website Ynet.

by Kevin Andrews

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