Arab leaders promise to work on reconstruction of Gaza and again press for a ceasefire

BAGHDAD: Arab leaders meeting at an annual summit in Baghdad said Saturday that they were trying to reach a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip and promised to contribute to the reconstruction of the territory once the war stops. In March, an emergency Arab League summit in Cairo endorsed a plan for Gaza's reconstruction without displacing its roughly 2 million residents. The summit in Baghdad was attended by Arab leaders including Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Egypt's President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. Among the guests were Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who called for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza and the flow of aid into the besieged territory.

He said that the UN rejects any "forced displacement" of Palestinians. Saturday's summit comes two months after Israel ended a ceasefire reached with the Hamas militant group in January. In recent days, Israel has launched widespread attacks in Gaza and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed a further escalation to pursue his aim of destroying Hamas. "This genocide has reached levels of ugliness not seen in all conflicts throughout history," Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani said in a speech that called for allowing aid to flow into Gaza.

Al-Sudani added that Iraq will work on setting up an Arab fund for the reconstruction of the region in which Baghdad will pay $20 million for Gaza and a similar amount for Lebanon. El-Sisi said that Egypt, in coordination with Qatar and the US, is "exerting intense efforts to reach a ceasefire" in Gaza, adding that the efforts led to the release of Israel-American hostage Edan Alexander. He said that Egypt plans to hold an international conference for the reconstruction of Gaza "once the aggression stops." Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas to abandon power in Gaza and along with other militant groups to hand over weapons to the Palestinian Authority. Hamas seized control of Gaza from Abbas' Western-backed Palestinian Authority in 2007, and reconciliation attempts between the rivals have repeatedly failed. The Baghdad meeting was upstaged by US President Donald Trump's tour in the region earlier in the week.

Trump's visit did not usher in a deal for a new ceasefire in Gaza as many had hoped, but he grabbed headlines by meeting with new Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa - who had once fought against US forces in Iraq - and promising to remove US sanctions imposed on Syria. Al-Sharaa did not attend the summit in Baghdad, where Syria's delegation was headed by Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani. Iraqi Shiite militias and political factions are wary of al-Sharaa's past as a Sunni militant and had pushed back against his invitation to the summit. During Syria's conflict that began in March 2011, several Iraqi Shiite militias fought alongside the forces of former Syrian President Bashar Assad, making al-Sharaa today a particularly sensitive figure for them. An Iraqi official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media, said that Iran's Quds Force commander Esmail Ghaani had paid a visit to Baghdad prior to the summit and "conveyed messages of support for the Iranian-American negotiations" to reach a nuclear deal and lifting of crippling sanctions on Iran.