opinion

An emergency summit of the League of Arab States held in Egypt on March 4 passed with unanimous approval a plan for rebuilding the Gaza Strip. 

At the meeting, the Egyptian President unveiled a plan for investing US$53 billion in fund for restoring Gaza in a period of five years and announced that it would serve as a guarantee for making 2.4 million inhabitants of the area live in their own land. The plan containing the details about providing homeless residents with temporary dwelling houses will be executed in several stages. It is said that US$3 billion are required for meeting urgent humanitarian needs and restoring essential basic facilities in the initial stage.

The summit adopted a final declaration calling for an international meeting to officially acknowledge the State of Palestine. It agreed on establishing a fund for rebuilding the Gaza Strip and appealed for international support. It also agreed that the Palestinian working committee would take charge of the administration of the area until the Palestinian National Authorities could totally control the area.

Leaders of Arab nations denounced Israel’s policy to alter the vital statistics of Palestine as an unethical crime violating international law. Describing Israel’s recent interception of the humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip as a violation of the ceasefire agreement and international humanitarian law, they decried its aggression and expansion of Jewish settlements and expressed support to the reconstruction of the area.

They also demanded the convening of an international meeting on its reconstruction in Cairo, Egypt, embracing the Palestinian National Authorities, the United Nations and the international community along with the cessation of hostilities by Israel. And they called on the UN Security Council to deploy an international peacekeeping force for ensuring the security of Palestine and Israel in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as an essential measure to found the State of Palestine.

The UN secretary general said that the UN would offer full cooperation to the implementation of the plan for rebuilding the Gaza Strip proposed by Egypt.

At the summit, the Palestinian President said that the State of Palestine would fulfil its responsibilities for the area through government agencies, adding that it is ready to organize the presidential and parliamentary elections the next year in case conditions are ripe.

As the news of the League of Arab States summit have been spread widely in different countries, the international support to and solidarity with the cause of Palestine are growing stronger with the passage of time.

The Tunisian President appreciated the Egypt-proposed plan for the reconstruction of Gaza in a telephone conversation with his Egyptian counterpart. Both sides reaffirmed their stand against the emigration of Palestinians and the moves to eradicate the cause of Palestine and stressed that the only solution for achieving eternal regional peace is to found an independent state of Palestine with East al-Quds as the capital and based on the border fixed in 1967.

The Gaza Strip definitely belongs to the Palestinian territory.