The Obama administration intends to provide some $900 million to help rebuild Gaza after the Israeli incursion that ended last month, administration officials said Monday.
In an early sign of how the administration plans to deal with Hamas, the militant Islamist group that controls Gaza, an official said that the aid would not go to Hamas but would be funneled through nongovernmental organizations.
By seeking to aid Gazans but not Hamas, the administration is following the lead of the Bush administration, which sent money to Gaza through nongovernmental organizations. In December, it said it would give $85 million to the United Nations agency that provides aid to Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
The United States considers Hamas a terrorist organization, and the Bush administration refused to have any formal dealings with the group.
The aid will include new spending as well as money already set aside for the Palestinian Authority, and it will be formally announced next week when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton travels to a Palestinian donors' conference in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, the officials said.
The aid, first reported by Reuters, would have to be approved by Congress, where many lawmakers are skittish about even appearing to help Hamas until it renounces violence and recognizes Israel's right to exist.
"None of the money will go to Hamas, it will be funneled through NGOs and UN groups," said an administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the aid before Clinton announced it.
The donors' conference in Egypt is seeking to raise close to $2 billion to rebuild Gaza, which was devastated by the three-week war with Israel. Some of the $900 million from the United States will go to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, officials said.
But even if the bulk of the money goes to Gaza, it will do little good unless Israel first opens the border crossing into the territory, said Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, a research organization in Washington.
"It's a good effort, but the money can't be spent unless materials can get into Gaza," Levy said. "The next step is opening the border crossings, and that requires more than just signing a check."
Hamas has demanded the opening of the crossings as part of truce negotiations being conducted through Egypt. Israel, which imposed an embargo after Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, demands an end to rocket fire from Gaza, a halt to weapons smuggling and the release of a captive Israeli soldier.
After the donors' conference in Egypt, Clinton will make her first trip to Israel as secretary of state, Israeli officials said. She is expected to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister-designate.
Clinton is also expected to travel to Ramallah in the West Bank for meetings with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and Salam Fayyad, the prime minister, whose Fatah organization is the principal rival to Hamas. Administration officials said it was unlikely that Clinton would go to Hamas-controlled Gaza.
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