Arab leaders meeting in Baghdad said Saturday that they were trying to reach a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and promised to contribute to the reconstruction of the Palestinian’s enclave once the war stops.
In March, an emergency Arab League summit in Cairo endorsed a plan for Gaza's reconstruction without displacing its roughly 2 million residents.
Among the guests at Saturday’s summit were Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who called for the flow of aid into the besieged territory. He said that the UN rejects any “forced displacement” of Palestinians.
The “genocide” in Gaza “has reached levels of ugliness not seen in all conflicts throughout history,” Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said in a speech that called for allowing aid to flow into Gaza. Al-Sudani added that Iraq will work on setting up an Arab fund for the reconstruction of the region in which Baghdad will pay $20 million for Gaza and a similar amount for Lebanon.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said that Egypt, in coordination with Qatar and the US, is “exerting intense efforts to reach a ceasefire” in Gaza, adding that the efforts led to the release of Israel-American hostage Edan Alexander. He said that Egypt plans to hold an international conference for the reconstruction of Gaza “once the aggression stops.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas to abandon power in Gaza and along with other militant groups to hand over weapons to the Palestinian Authority.
