Abbas to meet Egypt's Sisi, Kerry next week

RAMALLAH

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will meet with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during an upcoming visit to Cairo next week.

Abbas will arrive in Cairo on Saturday to attend an Egypt-hosted international donor conference to rebuild the war-battered Gaza Strip, due to open on Sunday.

Abbas will meet with Kerry and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, along with Egyptian Intelligence Chief Mohamed al-Tohami and Arab League Chief Nabil al-Arabi in Cairo on Saturday, according to Palestine Voice radio.

Following the one-day conference, Abbas will meet with al-Sisi on Monday, according to the radio station's report.

The Arab League said earlier this month that it hoped to raise $5 billion for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip at the Cairo donor conference.

The conference follows a ceasefire deal signed in Cairo on August 26 by Palestinian and Israeli negotiators, which ended Israel's devastating 51-day onslaught on the coastal enclave.

For seven weeks in July and August, Israel pummeled the Gaza Strip with the stated aim of halting rocket fire from the Palestinian territory.

The offensive left more than 2,150 Palestinians dead and some 11,000 others injured – the vast majority of them civilians – while destroying thousands of residential structures across the coastal strip.

According to Israeli figures, 68 Israeli soldiers and five civilians were killed over the same period – the highest military death toll suffered by Israel since it lost 119 troops in its 2006 war on Lebanon.

www.aa.com.tr/en