Arab leaders endorse Egypt’s Gaza plan

KABUL (Pajhwok): Arab leaders have endorsed Egypt’s plan for the Gaza Strip, aiming to ensure the Palestinian people can remain on their land without being displaced, says a media report.

On Tuesday, the leaders approved Egypt’s post-war plan for Gaza, which would allow approximately 2 million Palestinians living there to stay.

The roadmap is a counterproposal to former US President Donald Trump’s plan that suggested depopulating the territory, the Associated Press reported.

The $53 billion plan was backed by Arab leaders at a summit in Cairo, effectively rejecting Trump’s proposal.

The summit’s conclusions were welcomed by Hamas, rejected by Israel and met with a lukewarm response from the Trump administration.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi expressed his appreciation for “the consensus among the Arab countries to support the reconstruction plan for the Gaza Strip, which allows the Palestinian People to stay on their land without displacement.”

This comes after a joint assessment by the United Nations, the European Union, and the World Bank, which had previously shown that the reconstruction of Gaza, after 15 months of war, would require more than 53 billion dollars.

According to this assessment, 53.2 billion dollars are estimated for reconstruction over the next 10 years, with 20 billion dollars needed in the first three years.

Trump had stated that Gaza, in its current condition, was no longer habitable, and Palestinians should be relocated to places like Egypt or Jordan, and Gaza should be rebuilt.

However, this plan was met with opposition from Arab countries.

sa/mud