When U.S. President Donald Trump spoke in Israel’s parliament ahead of the signing of his Gaza peace plan this month, he thanked “Arab and Muslim nations” in advance for pledging “tremendous amounts of money” to rebuild the devastated Palestinian territory.
That appeared to resolve the question — to the U.S. leader at least — of how to find the $70 billion the United Nations says is needed to reconstruct the territory destroyed by Israel’s two-year military campaign against Hamas.
But persuading the likes of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to hand over the funds is unlikely to be as easy as Trump claimed. While the deep-pocketed and energy-rich trio worked on and enthusiastically endorsed the peace plan, all three have specific reservations about unconditionally providing financing, according to several people with knowledge of the thinking of Gulf officials.
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