Arab ministers meet in Qatar to discuss Gaza reconstruction funding

The foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar and the UAE met in Doha on Wednesday to discuss mechanisms for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. The Secretary-General of the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s Executive Committee also attended the meeting in the Qatari capital.

A statement by the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the ministers looked at ways to promote and mobilise funding for the Arab-Islamic plan for the early recovery and reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. Egypt will host the International Reconstruction Conference next month, in cooperation with the UN and the Palestinian government. It is expected that 100 donor countries and organisations will participate.

The statement added that the participants in Doha discussed ways to coordinate the Arab position, and the outcomes of the extraordinary Arab Summit held in Cairo and the extraordinary meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Jeddah regarding support for the Palestinian people.

The ministry pointed out that Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty met earlier on Wednesday with his Qatari counterpart, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani in Doha. The two discussed efforts to strengthen the ceasefire agreement in Gaza as well as ways to activate the Arab plan for the reconstruction of the Strip.

The member states of the Arab League adopted a plan on 4 March proposed by Egypt to rebuild the Gaza Strip without displacing its population. The estimated cost is up to $53 billion.

The plan was developed in response to US President Donald Trump’s proposal to displace Palestinians from Gaza, resettle most of them in Jordan and Egypt, and transform the Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East”. This proposal was rejected strongly by Arab countries.

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