Netanyahu in New York for UN address as Gaza rebuild funds fall short
Netanyahu is in New York for the UN General Assembly with no Trump meeting planned, as an EU official says only 1 billion euros of Gaza's 71 billion euro rebuild cost has been raised.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has arrived in New York to address the United Nations General Assembly, with his office describing a tight schedule that rules out a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump.
According to his office, Netanyahu will not sit down with Trump, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio or any Arab leaders during the visit. His office said many world leaders had requested meetings, but that he needed to return to Israel before the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which begins at sundown on Friday.
The Israeli leader is scheduled to meet the presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Panama and Ethiopia, the vice president of Colombia, and the prime ministers of Greece, Slovenia and Papua New Guinea.
On the sidelines of the General Assembly, European Commissioner for the Mediterranean Dubravka Šuica said only 1 billion euros, about $1.1 billion, has been raised toward the 71 billion euros, or $80.8 billion, that the United Nations, the World Bank and the 27-nation European Union estimate is needed to rebuild Gaza.
"All of us, we have to scale up our efforts," Šuica said, calling for a unified recovery plan bringing together Israel, the Palestinian Authority, the U.S.-backed Board of Peace and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.
At a meeting of the Gaza board in New York on Wednesday, the group proposed a six-month, $2.45 billion plan to begin reconstruction and governance in Gaza, as Trump's ceasefire plan struggles to hold.
Separately, a magnitude 5.4 earthquake shook southeast Turkey and parts of Syria on Thursday, sending people rushing out of buildings in panic. Turkey's Disaster and Emergency Management Agency said the quake was centred in Sanliurfa province, near the Syrian border. There were no immediate reports of damage.
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake in 2023 killed more than 53,000 people in Turkey and destroyed or damaged hundreds of thousands of buildings across 11 southern and southeastern provinces, including Sanliurfa. About 6,000 more people were killed in northern Syria.