International donors pledge nearly $4.5 billion for Palestinians

SHARM EL-SHEIKH: International donors meeting in Egypt on Monday to held rebuild war-battered Gaza have pledged $4.48 billion and called for urgent action to revive peace talks.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on her first visit to the region as America's top diplomat, said the economic aid to the Palestinians must go hand-in-hand with efforts to reach a comprehensive peace deal with Israel.

"Our response to today's crisis in Gaza cannot be separated from our broader efforts to achieve a comprehensive peace," Clinton told the conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Donors insist the money must be channeled through the Western-backed Palestinian Authority of president Mahmoud Abbas and must not go to Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas.

But foreign leaders called on the rival Palestinian factions to unite to help pave the way for peace and for a lifting of the Israeli blockade that has stopped all but urgent humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority is seeking $2.8 billion from the 70-odd countries and donor groups gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh six weeks after the guns fell largely silent around Gaza.

More than 1,300 Palestinians, two-thirds of them civilians, were killed in the three-week Israeli offensive which also left large swathes of Gaza in ruins, destroying homes, schools and other infrastructure.

The US administration has pledged $900 million, which Clinton said must not end up in the "wrong hands."

She said Abbas and his government are "offering their people the option of a peaceful, independent, and more prosperous future, not the violence and false choices of extremists whose tactics - including rocket attacks that continue to this day - only will lead to more hardship and suffering."

Abbas said any economic aid was "insufficient" without a political settlement to the roughly 60-year-old Middle East conflict, with the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

He called on the international community to take urgent steps to help revive peace talks at a time when Israel is set for a right-wing government led by hawkish former premier Benjamin Netanyahu.

Clinton met fellow members of the Middle East Quartet to try to advance the peace negotiations, which have been in tatters since the Gaza war, and is later due to head to Israel.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for the easing of Israel's crippling blockade of Gaza, imposed after Hamas defeated Fatah in the 2006 parliamentary elections, and was tightened after Hamas took control of Gaza by force in 2007, in what some consider a pre-emption of a Fatah effort to expel Hamas from the territory.

"The situation at the border crossings is intolerable. Aid workers do not have access. Essential commodities cannot get in," Ban said. Neither Israel nor Hamas - which have so far failed to reach a long-term Gaza truce being mediated by Egypt - were represented in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said it was essential to see a reopening of the border crossings into Gaza, where most of the 1.4 million population rely on aid handouts.

"If the donors provide the necessary funds and if the crossing points are open we will be able to begin reconstruction within six weeks at the latest."

The Palestinian Authority sought $1.3 billion for Gaza as well as $1.5 billion to shore up its budget.The European Union said it will donate $554 million while the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council have pledged a total of $1.65 billion.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said on Monday that international donors had called for the "unconditional" opening of all Gaza's borders with Israel.

Israel wants the international community to ensure the aid does not reach Hamas and has linked any lifting of its blockade to the release of a soldier held by Gaza fighters since June 2006. But Hamas has demanded it be involved in the rebuilding process.

"We welcome any initiative to rebuild what was destroyed by the Zionist occupation in the war on Gaza," Hamas government spokesman Taher al-Nunu told AFP.

But he said there were only two mechanisms for providing aid to Gaza - a new national unity government or a committee including all Palestinian factions.

Hamas said it would not accept any "politicized" aid, with spokesman Fawzi Barhum calling on the international community not to get involved in "internal Palestinian divisions." Hamas and Abbas' secular Fatah which forms the backbone of the Palestinian Authority have long been rivals but agreed at talks in Egypt last week to work toward the creation of a unity government.

"We are in favor of reconciliation behind President Mahmoud Abbas," European External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said after the Quartet meeting, calling on the US administration to take the lead in efforts to bring peace. - AFP with The Daily Star

Clinton seen in brief encounter with Syrian foreign minister

SHARM EL-SHEIKH: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem exchanged a few words during a rare brief encounter on Monday, Moallem told reporters.

The meeting on the sidelines of an international donor conference in Egypt "was short but very pleasant," Moallem said, adding that he was "happy it happened." Reporters said they saw the pair shake hands as they headed for lunch during the conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Moallem was standing at the entrance to the banquet room where delegates from more than 70 countries and organizations were having lunch.

Clinton stopped in front of Moallem, shook his hand and exchanged a few words with him, the reporters said.

US-Syrian ties were especially tense under president George W. Bush's administration, which accused Damascus of supporting terrorism and of turning a blind eye to the flow of arms and supplies to insurgents in neighboring Iraq.

Relations deteriorated sharply after the February 2005 assassination of Lebanese ex-premier Rafik Hariri in a Beirut bombing widely blamed on Syria. Damascus has repeatedly denied any involvement.

But President Barack Obama has promised to pursue "principled and sustained" engagement with all Middle Eastern states, including Syria.

And earlier this month several leading US Congressmen including Senator John Kerry visited Damascus for talks with President Bashar Assad. - AFP