Four months after the establishment of President Trump's 'Peace Council' fund for the reconstruction of Gaza - and the coffers are still empty.
According to a report this morning (Wednesday) in the Financial Times, despite promises of donations totaling $17 billion, the fund has not received a single dollar from donors.
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Kan News reported that some of the donations bypass the World Bank mechanism and go directly to the council's account, i.e. through an unofficial channel - but even there there is no significant flow of funds for the reconstruction of Gaza. In this way, much less information about the scope of these funds and their use is visible to the public.
It was also reported that so far only small amounts have been transferred: approximately $20 million from Morocco to finance the office of the Director-General of the Peace Council, Nickolay Mladenov, and for the salary of the Palestinian technocratic committee; $100 million from the United Arab Emirates to train a new police force is still frozen.
Not a single US dollar has been invested in reconstruction, and the council is in legal and political limbo with no clear authority on the ground. The council has yet to award contracts, partly because Hamas has not disarmed and still controls the Strip.
