Saniora Attends Donors Conference on Gaza Reconstruction
Prime Minister Fouad Saniora arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh on Sunday to take part in a donors” conference on the reconstruction of Gaza.
Major donors are expected at a meeting in Egypt on Monday to pledge billions of dollars to rebuild the Gaza Strip, but only if the enclave”s rulers Hamas agree to play no role in spending the cash.
The donors are demanding that the money be handled by the Palestinian Authority, which the Islamist Hamas evicted by force from the narrow coastal strip in June 2007.
"We expect rapid international aid from all parties to completely rebuild Gaza," Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas told reporters on Saturday.
"We also expect that as in the past there will be one mechanism, the Palestinian Authority," he said after meeting EU foreign policy supremo Javier Solana in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
The Palestinian Authority and Hamas each want to lead the rebuilding effort, but Western countries — which blacklist Hamas as a terror group — have said they will work only with Abbas.
"I would like to insist that the mechanism used to deploy the money is the one that represents the Palestinian Authority," Solana said. "I don”t think there is a need for new mechanisms."
Star delegate at the aid conference in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh will U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who will reportedly arrive bearing a check for 900 million dollars.
Saudi Arabia is expected to reaffirm a commitment to provide one billion dollars towards reconstruction, and the European Union has said it will grant 554 million dollars to the Palestinian people in 2009.
Donor countries from the January 2008 Paris conference will reiterate a pledge of 7.4 billion dollars in aid to the Palestinians in the three years 2008-2010, of which three billion has so far been distributed.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has said he is seeking 2.8 billion dollars to rebuild Gaza.
Around 75 delegations are scheduled to attend Monday”s conference, which is organized by Egypt and Norway and sponsored by the United Nations, European Union, France, Italy and the Arab League.
The 1.4-million population of the Gaza Strip — around half of whom depend on United Nations handouts — are in dire need of whatever help the international community can provide.
The Gaza economy was brought to its knees by the blockade imposed by Israel from the time Hamas seized control of the enclave.
Then Israel”s 22-day onslaught on the territory in December and January caused physical devastation, destroying homes, hospitals, schools and other infrastructure as well as killing more than 1,300 Palestinians.
Fayyad says the damage to homes has forced 90,000 people to live in tents now pitched amid the ruins.
Neither Israel nor Hamas will be represented at the gathering, but for the aid program to succeed Israel must lift its blockade and Hamas will have to be reconciled with the secular Fatah, backbone of the Palestinian Authority.
The rival Palestinian factions have agreed to start talks aimed at working towards the formation of a "consensus" government.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said his priority is the release of soldier Gilad Shalit from captivity by Hamas, placing this aim above reaching a lasting truce in Gaza or negotiating to lift the blockade.
But Egypt is continuing discussions aimed at trying to broker a long-term truce, and the Middle East Peace Quartet will meet on the sidelines of the aid conference to discuss how to revive the peace process.
Clinton is expected to attend that event, as is Solana, UN head Ban Ki-moon and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said the aid conference has a double role: economic, to organize humanitarian aid and the reconstruction of Gaza, and political, focused on the peace process.
"The mechanism for the reconstruction will be fixed at Sharm el-Sheikh," he said, but whatever is agreed cannot be implemented until Israel agrees to end its blockade and open border crossings into and out of Gaza.