As day two of the ceasefire dawned on Gaza, rescue workers and citizens got to work trying to salvage what they could from the wreckage and pulled additional bodies from the rubble, bringing the death toll to 1,315.
The relative calm was only punctuated by a few artillery salvos shot from Israeli war boats for unknown reasons, according to As-Safir, while ground troops operated a limited incursion near Khan Younes.
Gaza was the topic of discussion at the Arab Economic Summit held in Kuwait Monday, which saw reconciliations among the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Qatar.
Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz “took participants by surprise and unpredictably announced in the name of all those present that the period of conflict was over,” according to An-Nahar, adding, “The Arab Peace Initiative will not remain on the table forever,” a reference to the 2002 Saudi-backed land-for-peace deal struck with the Palestinians.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who attended the summit, asserted to the participants that he was attached to the Arab Peace Initiative, defended Egypt’s role during the current Gaza crisis, and made allusions to Iran’s attempts to “infiltrate the Arab world.”
But Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was of another mind, telling participants that the Arab Initiative was “as good as dead” and called for “conclusive decisions to end the aggression, secure the withdrawal of occupation troops, lift the siege and open border crossings.”
The participants reportedly did, however, agree on three issues: halting all mutual accusation campaigns, arranging mutual visits among feuding leaders and resolving pending disputes pertaining to bilateral relations.
The participants were also expected to define the amount of their respective contributions in the Gaza reconstruction fund. Saudi Arabia deposited the first contribution by donating $1 billion, and the Kuwaiti emir said his country would donate $500 million, which combined almost covered the $1.9 billion that the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics estimated as the direct losses resulting from the Israeli offensive.
In addition, An-Nahar reported from the summit that all parties were expecting an inter-Palestinian reconciliation, though Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erekat denied that any negotiations had been held with Hamas and linked the start of reconciliation to the condition of forming a national unity government.
After the summit, the Kuwaiti emir took Assad and the king of Bahrain along with him to the residence of the Saudi king, where they were joined by the Qatari emir, the Egyptian president and the Jordanian king, although contacts reportedly remained “cold” between the Egyptian and Syrian presidents, according to Al-Akhbar.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, the Hamas-affiliated police force was deployed in the streets, and a spokesman for Hamas’s military wing asserted that the movement’s rocket-launching capacities were unharmed.
However, Israel was confident it had removed the threat of rocket launchings from Gaza and was preparing to conclude its withdrawal Tuesday prior to the official inauguration of US President-elect Barack Obama at 6:30 p.m. local time.