DOHA: Arab states who were swift to reject President Donald Trump’s plan for the United States to take control of Gaza and resettle its Palestinians are scrambling to agree on a diplomatic offensive to counter the idea, five sources told Reuters.
Trump’s plan, announced on Feb 4 during a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, has infuriated the Palestinians and Arab countries and upended decades of US diplomacy focused on a two-state solution.
But Arab states trying to devise an alternative plan have yet to tackle critical issues like who will foot the bill for Gaza’s reconstruction – estimated by the United Nations at more than US$50 billion – or how the Strip will be governed, according to sources familiar with diplomatic discussions ahead of the meeting.
The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.
Leaders of Gulf Arab countries plus Egypt and Jordan are due to meet later on Friday (Feb 21) in Riyadh for what Saudi Arabia said would be an unofficial meeting within the framework of “close brotherly relations”.
Riyadh’s statement made no official mention of discussions about Gaza. But the sources told Reuters that the meetup, which was preceded by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s arrival on Thursday, was to discuss a mainly Egyptian proposal to counter Trump’s plan to “clean out” Palestinians from Gaza and resettle most of them in Jordan and Egypt.
Cairo’s proposal could include up to US$20 billion in funding over three years pledged mostly by wealthy Gulf and Arab states, but no commitments have been made clear yet, the sources said.
“Details are not clear and there is confusion among stakeholders about what the plan contains,” one of the sources, an official involved in negotiations over Gaza told Reuters.
A source close to Saudi Arabia’s royal court told Reuters that no proposal had been finalised ahead of Friday’s talks.
It remains unclear if the Arab leaders will be able to reach a consensus on a unified alternative to Trump’s plan ahead of an emergency meeting of the Arab League set for Mar 4 in Cairo.
Sisi called on Wednesday on the international community to adopt a plan to rebuild Gaza without displacing Palestinians.
Palestinians and others in the region are concerned Trump’s proposal would destabilise the region, repeating the “Nakba”, or catastrophe in the 1948 war at the birth of the state of Israel.
In a defining moment of pain for the Palestinians, almost 800,000 of them fled or were forced away from their homes and villages. Many were driven into refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, and in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where many of their descendants languish more than 75 years later.
