U.S. pledges $900 million in aid to Palestine

U.S. offers $300 million to Gaza, rest to Abbas

Source: Reuters Foundation

Date: 01 Mar 2009

- U.S. to split funds between Gaza and Palestinian Authority

- Europeans seek more flexibility with Hamas

- U.S. says Quartet conditions remain (Adds details on amount, quotes, European diplomat’s comments)

By Sue Pleming

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt, March 1 (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will pledge $900 million for the Palestinians at a donors’ conference in Egypt, but only a third of that is earmarked for Gaza, a U.S. official said on Sunday.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood said the pledge at Monday’s conference amounted to $300 million to meet “urgent” humanitarian needs in Hamas-ruled Gaza after Israel’s military invasion in December, and would be funnelled through U.N. and other organizations.

“Hamas is not getting any of this money,” Wood told reporters in the Egyptian coastal resort, where Clinton arrived late on Sunday on the first leg of a week-long trip to the Middle East and Europe.

About $200 million of the U.S. pledge would help cover budget shortfalls of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) and the remainder was for economic reforms, security and private sector projects run by the PA, said Wood.

Monday’s conference is aimed at raising funds to help with the post-conflict recovery of Gaza after Israel’s offensive, but Washington also wants it to bolster President Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, which governs the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“We have to shore up the Palestinian Authority,” said Wood.

How much of the U.S. contribution will ultimately materialize is unclear as the funds have to be agreed by the U.S. Congress, which is more focused on fixing an economic crisis, and suspicious that some of the aid will reach Hamas.

U.S. aid contributions are further complicated by reconciliation talks among Palestinian factions, including Hamas, which the United States brands a terrorist group.

The United States and its so-called Quartet partners in Middle East peacemaking — Russia, the United Nations and the European Union — have demanded that Hamas recognize Israel, sign on to Israeli-Palestinian accords and renounce violence before it can be accepted as a partner.

FLEXIBILITY?

But a senior European diplomat said some European countries were looking at how they could be “more flexible” by dealing with a potential Palestinian government that included Hamas, if the wide rift between the two factions could be bridged.

Without a unified government, funds raised at the conference could not be distributed properly, the diplomat said.

Wood said the U.S. position was firm on Hamas meeting the three conditions, and Clinton would reiterate this in informal talks with other Quartet members on Monday.

“We must not send mixed signals to Hamas,” said Wood. Clinton did not speak to reporters in person.

After the conference in Egypt, Clinton travels to Jerusalem to see Israeli politicians, who are trying to cobble together a new government after February elections.

Human rights groups have also urged Clinton to press the Israelis to ease restrictions on border crossings into Gaza and allow aid and goods to pass freely through.

Wood said the United States wanted to “see those border crossings open” but that smuggling of weapons had to stop. “It’s a difficult situation,” he said.

Clinton plans to meet Benjamin Netanyahu, the hawkish Israeli prime minister-designate who on Saturday abandoned efforts to form a broad coalition government with centrist Tzipi Livni, who has been involved in U.S.-brokered peace talks.

Livni has accused Netanyahu of insufficient commitment to the talks, and her decision not to join a government weakens Clinton’s effort to kick-start the peace effort that her husband, Bill Clinton, failed to conclude when he was president.

Silvan Shalom, a Netanyahu ally, told Reuters the Likud leader would engage in dialogue with the Palestinians but would not agree in advance to the two-state solution advocated by the international powers since the Oslo accords of 1993.

Clinton will also travel to the West Bank to see Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, before going to Brussels for meetings with NATO foreign ministers.

(Editing by Kevin Liffey)

UN Special Envoy Arrukban: Aid cannot be deliverd because Gaza borders still closed

OPT: Gaza borders must open – UN humanitarian envoy

Source: United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs – Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)

Date: 01 Mar 2009

GAZA CITY, 1 March 2009 (IRIN) – On his first visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Humanitarian Envoy, Abdul Aziz Arrukban, met with aid agency officials to discuss better ways of bringing in relief supplies and with Gaza residents to assess how much aid they were actually receiving.

“The borders are still closed and goods and building materials still can’t enter,” said Arrukban, a Saudi national who reports directly to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes.

Since Israel’s 23-day military campaign in the Gaza Strip ended on 18 January, Arrukban has brokered more than US$50 million in humanitarian aid from two Gulf countries , channeled via UN agencies, for the dilapidated coastal territory.

Qatar donated $40 million, of which $30 million went directly to UN agencies in Gaza and $10 million to the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), a stand-by UN fund established to enable the delivery of humanitarian assistance to those affected by natural disasters and armed conflicts [see: http://ochaonline.un.org/cerf/Donors/Donors/tabid/5370/language/en-US/Default.aspx]. Gaza received $8 million in aid from the CERF immediately after the conflict.

Saudi Arabia donated $10.5 million, of which the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) received $6 million for emergency food assistance and $500,000 for fuel; and $4 million went to the World Food Programme (WFP).

Acting as a bridge between UN humanitarian agencies and donors, governments and the private sector in the Middle East and North Africa, Arrukban toured Gaza to see for himself the extent of the damage in the enclave and to ensure that relief supplies were actually reaching the most vulnerable people in the Strip.

Regular border closures

The most pressing issue, aid officials told him, was Israel’s regular closure of border crossings into Gaza.

“Aid cannot be delivered unless the crossings are opened,” Christina Blunt, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza, said during a briefing for Arrukban by heads of UN agencies in the enclave.

Over the past few weeks, about 120 trucks a day have been allowed to enter Gaza by the Israeli authorities, OCHA estimated, with about half that number for the private sector. In May 2007, before Hamas won elections in Gaza and a subsequent embargo was placed on the enclave, about 475 trucks entered daily.

The UN envoy held meetings with officials from the Egyptian Red Crescent to discuss a mechanism to facilitate the entry of approximately 9,000 metric tonnes of what a recent Logistics Cluster report [see: http://www.logcluster.org/gaza09a/coordination/situation-reports/situation-report-20-26th-february-2009/] described as “unsolicited bilateral donations” to the people of Gaza. The aid, a large portion lacking documentation and designated recipient organisations in Gaza, has been denied entry into Israel and is being held in al-Arish, Egypt.

The Egyptian government has mandated the Egyptian Red Crescent to take custody of these donations, which originate from a number of Middle Eastern countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Yemen and Libya.

While some aid has entered Gaza, 1,700 pallets of humanitarian items are also stuck in Israel, according to the Logistics Cluster report.

Residents desperate

Aid is desperately needed by some of the 1.5 million residents of the 360 sq km Strip, the twelfth most densely populated place on earth. In torrential rain, Arrukban visited displaced residents in the Abed Rabbo area of Jabaliya.

“I am afraid to re-build my home again,” Henan Salah, a 40-year-old mother, said. She and her six children are now living in the one room still standing after an Israeli missile struck her home. Salah said that just eight months ago she had rebuilt her home after it was destroyed by Israeli forces in an incursion then. Unable to buy cooking gas, she had to break up the remains of her furniture to use as firewood.

Tented communities have sprung up in areas where Israeli tanks inflicted heavy damage in densely populated areas.

“The coldness is killing us,” Khalil al-Gharabli said, pointing at his wife and six children sitting on a donkey cart beside their demolished home. Al-Gharabli, now unemployed, used to work as an agricultural labourer in Israel.

Donor concerns

Arrukban said that he must assuage donor concerns that their funds will be wasted if re-constructed homes and agricultural lands are repeatedly destroyed during Israeli invasions.

Perhaps just as importantly, he said he hoped to increase confidence in GCC counties that the multilateral humanitarian system works.

UN officials estimate that as much as 90 percent of Saudi donations to Gaza are bilateral – to the government, NGOs and charities. Donors will be encouraged to give cash, but if they choose to donate goods, to make sure it is allocated to a recipient organisation in Gaza to ensure their entry.

Arrukban travels to Doha and Riyad next seeking contributions from donors to facilitate reconstruction and economic recovery in Gaza.

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