RIYADH: Arab leaders met in Riyadh on Friday to craft a plan for Gaza’s post-war reconstruction to counter Donald Trump’s proposal for the United States to take over the territory without its Palestinian residents. Trump’s plan has united Arab states in opposition to it, but disagreements remain over who should govern Gaza and how its reconstruction can be funded. A photo from the meeting showed the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with the leaders of other Gulf Arab states, as well as Egypt and Jordan.

A source close to the Saudi government confirmed the meeting had finished. He said he did not expect a final statement to be issued as the “discussion was confidential”. The official Saudi Press Agency said the “fraternal consultative” meeting saw an “exchange of views on various regional and international issues, especially joint efforts in support of the Palestinian cause, and developments in the situation in the Gaza Strip”. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s office said he had left the Saudi capital after the sit-down with the leaders of Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Trump triggered global outrage when he proposed the United States “take over” the Gaza Strip and relocate its more than two million residents to Egypt and Jordan. “We’re at a very important historic juncture in the Arab-Zionist or Zionist-Palestinian conflict... where potentially the United States under Trump could create new facts on the ground that are irreversible,” Andreas Krieg of King’s College London said ahead of the meeting. The Saudi source had told AFP that the summit participants would discuss “a reconstruction plan to counter Trump’s plan for Gaza”.

The Gaza Strip is largely in ruins after more than 15 months of war between Zionists and Hamas, with the United Nations recently estimating that reconstruction will cost more than $53 billion. During a meeting with Trump in Washington on February 11, Jordan’s King Abdullah II said Egypt would present a plan for a way forward.

The Saudi source had said ahead of the talks that the delegates would discuss “a version of the Egyptian plan”. The Saudi Press Agency said the decisions taken at the “unofficial” meeting would be put on the agenda of an emergency Arab League summit to be held in Egypt on March 4.

Financing

Arab leaders see an alternative plan for Gaza’s reconstruction as essential after Trump pointed to the scale of the task as a justification for relocating its Palestinian residents. Cairo has yet to release the details of its proposal, but former Egyptian diplomat Mohamed Hegazy outlined a plan “in three technical phases over a period of three to five years”. The first phase, lasting six months, would focus on “early recovery” and the removal of debris, he said.

The second would require an international conference to set out detailed plans for reconstruction and restoring infrastructure. The final phase would see the provision of housing and services and the establishment of a “political track to implement the two-state solution”, an independent Palestine alongside Zionist entity.

An Arab diplomat familiar with Gulf affairs said: “The biggest challenge facing the Egyptian plan is how to finance it. It would be inconceivable for Arab leaders to meet without reaching a common vision, but the main thing lies in the content of this vision and the ability to implement it.” Krieg said it was a “unique opportunity” for the “Saudis to rally all the other GCC countries, plus Egypt and Jordan, around on this matter, to find a common position to answer what is a kind of very coercive statement that Trump has been making”.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has appeared to soften his plan to take control of war-torn Gaza and relocate its more than two million residents to nearby countries, saying he was only recommending the idea. Trump triggered shock earlier this month when he presented his plan, in which Washington would take over the territory and rebuild it while pressuring Egypt and Jordan to accept displaced Palestinians. But in an interview on Friday, the Republican president conceded that the leaders of Jordan and Egypt had rejected the plan, calling the displacement of Palestinians against their will unjus AFP