A Palestinian boy stands on a wall waiting for the arrival of Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah (unseen) who will visit some of the areas worst hit by the 50-day Israeli war on Gaza in July and August, on October 9, 2014 in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip. (Photo: AFP - Said Khatib)
US Secretary of State John Kerry will call for a revival of the collapsed Israeli-Palestinian peace process on Sunday when he attends an international conference in Cairo on rebuilding Gaza, American officials said.
The top US diplomat and 30 of his counterparts convene in the Egyptian capital alongside UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who is seeking a record $1.6 billion in aid to rebuild the battered Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian government last week unveiled a 76-page reconstruction plan for Gaza, calling for $4 billion to rebuild the war-battered territory, with the largest amount going to build housing for some 100,000 left homeless.
The Israeli military operation on Gaza killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians, at least 70 percent of them civilians, while attacks by Gaza militants killed 73 on the Israeli side, including 68 soldiers.
An estimated 18,000 homes were destroyed in Gaza and infrastructure was badly battered during the seven-week war.
Senior US officials voiced doubts on Friday that an international donors conference to be held in Cairo this weekend will meet the Palestinians' full request for $4 billion in aid pledges to rebuild the Gaza Strip.
it remains unclear how generous donor governments will be, given the lack of progress toward resolving the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the risk that hostilities could erupt again, destroying whatever has been rebuilt.
"It's fair to say there are serious questions being raised by the donors," a State Department official told reporters, citing concerns that unless the cycle is broken they will be "back here doing the same thing again in a year or two."
The official did not mention whether the cycle of violence would mean fewer US money sent to Israel.
He predicted the conference would yield "significant contributions" for reconstruction, with the Gulf states providing the bulk of it and Washington and the Europeans offering "meaningful and appropriate" amounts as well.
But the official said, "I don't know whether anybody thinks we're going to get to four billion (dollars), or whether we need those kind of pledges right now." Another State Department official added: "We're not there at this point."
Kerry will meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on the sidelines of the conference, having last met at the UN General Assembly in September, State Department officials said.
"You will hear the secretary reaffirm the commitment of the United States to helping the parties achieve a negotiated two-state solution and our willingness to re-engage in the negotiations and help facilitate successful negotiations," a State Department official said.
"More broadly we are interested in sort of breaking the cycle we have been in in the last six years of war and reconstruction there," the official added.
Kerry was the architect of a high-profile bid to re-start negotiations, which collapsed in April and were followed by the devastating 50-day war in Gaza, the third conflict in the enclave in six years.
(AFP, Reuters, Al-Akhbar)
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