Officials from 68 countries in Paris have pledged a multi-billion dollar aid package for Palestinians, in the biggest such meetig for a decade. To help set up a viable Palesinian State, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, wants $56 billion by 2010.
He warned the one-day donors’ summit that Palestinians are facing a ” total catastrophe” and challenged Isreal to freeze all settlement activity.
Hamas was not invited but called the talks a ”declaration but called the talks a ” declaration of war” on it. ” This was very clear in the speeches,” said Sami A bu Zuhri, Spokesman for Hamas.
” French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, for example, called on the Palestinians to unite brhind Abbas and said there would be no peace with a group that refuses to recognise Isreal-meaning Hamas,” he said.
Gaza, already suffering from an international boycott against Hamas after it won elections in early 2006, was plunged further into economic and political isolation after the Islamist militant group seized contorl of the territory amid a violent power struggle with Fatah this summer.
Appealing for aid, Abbas told donors in Paris a ” moment of truth” had arrived ” Without the payment of aid…. we will be facing a total catastrophe in the west Bank and Gaza,” he s