Admin l Wednesday, May 26, 2021
RAMALAH, West Bank – The United States of America has pledged a total sum of $360 million in urgent assistant to Palestine as part of effort to reconstruct Gaza and other areas destroyed as a result of heavy bombardment by Israel during the conflict. Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken made the pledge during his visit to Palestine.
“ I informed President Abbas and, earlier, Prime Minister Netanyahu that the United States will notify Congress of our intention to provide $75 million in additional development and economic assistance for the Palestinians in 2021.
“We’ll also provide $5.5 million in immediate disaster assistance for Gaza and a little over $32 million for UNRWA’s emergency humanitarian appeal. This new assistance comes on top of significant support the United States has recently committed and resumed to the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinians, to different agencies and groups.
“In total, we are in the process of providing more than $360 million of urgent support for the Palestinian people, and across these efforts, we will work with partners to ensure that Hamas does not benefit from these reconstruction efforts”, Blinken said and that he will be asking the international community to help rebuild Gaza. He said it makes sense if there is confidence that what is rebuilt is not lost again if Hamas decides to launch more rocket attacks in the future.
On the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States, he said will rally the international community to provide 1.5 million doses of safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines to the Palestinian people.
“Beyond the immediate reconstruction , we’re also committed to working with the Palestinian Authority and the international community to promote economic stability and progress in the West Bank and Gaza, more opportunity, to strengthen the private sector, expand trade and investment, all of which are essential to growing opportunity across the board.
“We’ll also work with the Palestinian Authority to ensure freedom of expression for all Palestinians and the promotion and protection of civil society”, Blinken said.
Earlier, President of the Palestinian Authority, Mr. Mahmoud Abbas thanked President Biden and the U.S. administration for the ceasefire between the Gaza Strip and Israel, and the efforts that they continue to exert in order to reach a comprehensive ceasefire that will hold.
“We would also like to thank the U.S. administration for its support to the state of Palestine and for the resumption of its assistance to us and to the UNRWA. This is something that we highly value, and we hope that the future will be rife with diplomatic and political effort headed by the U.S. and the Quartet so that we can reach a lasting and comprehensive peace in the region according to international legitimacy resolutions, and so that these actions on the part of a few – of a hurtful few would come to an end’, he said.
He thanked the U.S. administration for its commitment to a two-state solution, and the maintenance of the status quo in Jerusalem, and to keep the residents of Jerusalem and Sheikh Jarrah in their homes. “And also we thank the U.S. administration for its position vis-a-vis the expansion of settlements, and the actions taken by settlers”, he said, affirming that Palestine is committed to peaceful popular resistance and that it renounces violence and terrorism.
“We only want to achieve a political solution through peaceful means between us and Israel. We have also affirmed that our government stands ready to work directly in order for the reconstruction of Gaza and also to establish a national unity government for that end that would be all-inclusive. And in the event that such agreement materializes, our first condition would be that Hamas and all parties have to abide by international legitimacy resolutions that are known for everyone.
“And we also informed the Secretary that we have postponed the elections, because Israel has refused to include Jerusalem in these elections, and the minute that it does we will hold them immediately and without any delay, because ultimately what we’re interested in is to establish democracy throughout Palestine”, he said.
