CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt will allocate $500 million for rebuilding efforts in the Gaza strip following Israeli air strikes, the Egyptian presidency said on Tuesday.
Israel bombarded Gaza with air strikes and Palestinian militants resumed cross-border rocket fire on Tuesday after a brief overnight lull.
Nearly 450 buildings in the Gaza strip have been destroyed or badly damaged, including six hospitals and nine primary care health centres, the United Nations humanitarian agency said. Some 47,000 out of 52,000 displaced persons had fled to U.N. schools.
Egyptian companies will participate in rebuilding operations, according to the statement that followed a meeting between President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, French President Emmanuel Macron and Jordan’s King Abdullah in Paris.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh thanked Sisi for his contribution and Egypt’s mediation efforts, which reflected the country’s “national commitment to the Palestinian cause”.
Egyptian officials have worked to restore ties with Hamas, strained following the 2013 ouster of former President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood, which share’s Hamas’s Islamist ideology.
Haniyeh has since 2017 visited Cairo as Egyptian mediators brokered talks between Hamas and its rival Fatah.
(Reporting by Mohamed Waly and Nidal al-Mughrabi; Writing by Nadine Awadalla; Editing by Alison Williams and Giles Elgood)
