The European Union has launched a $1 billion initiative to restore Gaza following months of war and conflict.
The Team Gaza Initiative, which consists of ministers and senior officials from EU member states and partner countries, as well as representatives from other organizations and financial entities, seeks to bolster financial pledges to the region and recovery efforts. It specifically seeks to “coordinate early recovery projects in Gaza to address the restoration of basic services for the population; this would include water and sanitation infrastructure, debris and solid waste management and removal, and restoring health, energy, agriculture and food systems,” the EU explained.
According to the European Commission, the governments of Spain, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, France, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, as well as the European Investment Bank and the World Bank, are participating in the initiative. Australia and Canada are also expected to join.
Kaja Kallas, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, said in a statement that the EU is the “most reliable and credible partner for the Palestinian people” and the “strongest supporter of a Two-State Solution.”
The representative of the U.S.-led reconstruction effort known as the Board of Peace, Nikolay Mladenov, attended the meeting.
During the Board’s inaugural meeting in February, the United States pledged $10 billion to the effort, while other nations, such as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, and Kuwait, have donated an estimated $7 billion in total.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said during the meeting that the “Gaza situation was impossible to solve under orthodoxy, under existing structures.” He described that with the United Nations’ approval, the Board was formed to “bring these nations together to come up with a very specific solution – solutions – to a very unique and specific problem.”
