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Egypt Tells US Top Diplomat Rubio That Arab States Reject Trump’s Gaza Plan 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty at the State Department in Washington, US, February 10, 2025. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty at the State Department in Washington, US, February 10, 2025. (Reuters)
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Egypt Tells US Top Diplomat Rubio That Arab States Reject Trump’s Gaza Plan 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty at the State Department in Washington, US, February 10, 2025. (Reuters)
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty at the State Department in Washington, US, February 10, 2025. (Reuters)

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday that Arab states rejected US President Donald Trump's widely condemned plan to displace Palestinians in Gaza and take control of the enclave.

Egypt's foreign ministry said Abdelatty, in a meeting in Washington, stressed the importance of expediting Gaza's reconstruction while Palestinians remained there.

A statement by the US State Department after the meeting did not explicitly mention Trump's plan but added that Rubio "reiterated the importance of close cooperation to advance post-conflict planning for the governance and security of Gaza and stressed Hamas can never govern Gaza or threaten Israel again."

Abdelatty said he was looking forward to working with the new US administration to achieve "comprehensive and just peace and stability" in the region, according to the Egyptian foreign ministry statement.

He also met with US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in a separate meeting, where he echoed similar statements, the foreign ministry said.

Any suggestion that Palestinians leave Gaza, which they want as part of an independent state, has been anathema to the Palestinian leadership for generations and neighboring Arab states have rejected it since the Israel-Gaza war began in October 2023.

Trump first suggested on January 25 that Egypt and Jordan should take in Palestinians from Gaza. In the days ahead, he proposed a US takeover of Gaza and a potential permanent displacement of Palestinians from the enclave with no right of return.

Trump's comments echoed long-standing Palestinian fears of being permanently driven from their homes and have been labeled by rights advocates and the United Nations as a proposal of ethnic cleansing.

Israel's military assault on Gaza, now paused by a fragile ceasefire, has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians in the last 16 months, the Gaza health ministry says, and provoked accusations of genocide and war crimes that Israel denies.

The assault internally displaced nearly all of Gaza's population and caused a hunger crisis.

The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian Hamas fighters attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking some 250 hostages, Israeli tallies show.

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UNDP Plans for $1.3Bln in Help for Syria

People wait their turn in a queue outside an ATM in Damascus on April 16, 2025. (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA / AFP)
People wait their turn in a queue outside an ATM in Damascus on April 16, 2025. (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA / AFP)
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UNDP Plans for $1.3Bln in Help for Syria

People wait their turn in a queue outside an ATM in Damascus on April 16, 2025. (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA / AFP)
People wait their turn in a queue outside an ATM in Damascus on April 16, 2025. (Photo by LOUAI BESHARA / AFP)

The United Nations Development Program is hoping to deliver $1.3 billion over three years to support war-ravaged Syria, including by rebuilding infrastructure and backing digital start-ups, its assistant secretary-general told Reuters.
Abdallah Dardari told Reuters in Damascus that investing in Syria - hit hard by 14 years of conflict that ended when former leader Bashar al-Assad was ousted by a rebel offensive in December and fled the country - was seen as a "global public good."
"Our total plan for Syria over three years is $1.3 billion. This is not just a number, but a comprehensive strategy covering all support aspects," Dardari said. He said that help could include introducing artificial intelligence, setting up social protection programs and rebuilding infrastructure.
He said it would be crucial to mobilize funds from different sources including the World Bank and International Monetary Fund as well as other countries in the region.
Since Assad was toppled last year after a nearly 14-year civil war, his successors have called on the international community to lift sanctions imposed against the country during his rule.
So far, most of those sanctions remain in place, with the United States and other Western countries saying the new authorities still need to demonstrate a commitment to peaceful and inclusive rule.
Syria has $563 million in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) at the IMF. But using the funds requires approval by IMF members holding 85% of the total votes, giving the United States, with 16.5% of the votes, an effective veto.
Syria's finance minister, central bank governor and foreign minister are planning on attending the spring meetings next week, Reuters reported earlier this month.
It would be the first visit to the meetings by a high-level Syrian government delegation in at least two decades, and the first high-level visit by Syria's new authorities to the US Assad's fall.
Washington has handed Syria a list of conditions which, if fulfilled, could lead to some sanctions relief, Reuters reported last month. Dardari said that sanctions remained "a considerable obstacle" to Syria's growth trajectory.
"Syria needs tens of billions of dollars in investments and in technical assistance and so on, and that cannot happen with such heavy sanctions imposed on the country," he said, calling for sanctions "to be lifted in a comprehensive manner." Dardari said UNDP had secured a sanctions exemption from the US Treasury to mobilize up to $50 million to repair the Deir Ali power plant south of Damascus.
Three sources familiar with the issue told Reuters the World Bank is exploring hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to improve Syria's electricity grid and support the public sector.
Syria's central bank governor Abdelkader Husrieh told Reuters that his country wanted to be compliant with global financial standards but that sanctions were still "blocking the economy from going forward".
"We want to be part of the international financial system and hope that the international community will help us to remove any obstacle to this integration," he said.