CAIRO: International donors pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to rebuild the battered Gaza Strip on Sunday and urged Israel and the Palestinians to renew peace efforts.

Gas-rich Qatar led the way at a donors’ conference in Cairo with a promise of $1 billion in aid to the coastal enclave, devastated by its 50-day summer conflict with Israel.

Washington pledged $212 million and European Union member states 450 million euros, but there was clear concern at financing the reconstruction of Gaza yet again without a peace deal in sight. US Secretary of State John Kerry said Gaza was facing an “enormous” challenge. “The people of Gaza do need our help, desperately, not tomorrow, not next week, they need it now,” he said. Mr Kerry, who failed to broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians earlier this year, urged renewed talks and said the two sides needed to make “tough choices”.

The call was echoed by Arab and European envoys.

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2014