Global Policy Forum

Major powers and key donors meet in Paris on Monday for a conference aimed at raising billions of dollars to help the emergence of a viable Palestinian state and give political impetus to the newly relaunched peace process with Israel. Ninety international delegations are expected at the one-day Conference of Donors for a Palestinian State, the biggest of its kind since 1996, which aims to shore up the already shaky negotiations jumpstarted in the US city of Annapolis last month.

The donors conference comes amid an escalation of rhetoric and attacks between Hamas and Israel, and various Israeli incursions into the occupied West Bank. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is already in Paris, is seeking $5.6 billion spread over 2008 to 2010 for an ambitious development plan to underwrite a promised state and tackle economic hardship in the Palestinian territories.

The US is ready to pledge more than $500 million, officials in Washington said, while the German government promised $200 million by 2010. Delegates gathering for the occasion include UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will represent Israel, which is under pressure to lift restrictions on freedom of movement in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip to allow the Palestinian Authority's plan to take shape. Livni and Abbas held a meeting in Paris Sunday afternoon.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, special peace envoy for the Middle East Quartet - the EU, Russia, the UN and the US - is co-chair of the event along with host country France, peace-broker Norway and the European Commission. French President Nicolas Sarkozy will open the proceedings, at Abbas' side, with a speech at 9:30 a.m. on Monday, before handing over to French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner for the rest of the day.

The Middle East Quartet is expected to meet on the sidelines of the conference, while several high-profile participants - including Ban, Abbas, Fayyad, Livni and Lavrov - were to have an informal dinner with Kouchner on Sunday evening. At the US-sponsored meeting in Annapolis, Maryland last month, Israel and the Palestinians pledged to seek a peace deal by the end of next year, relaunching negotiations frozen for seven years.

Abbas has said he is confident Paris will clinch the necessary aid - 70 percent in budget support and 30 percent for development projects - sending a powerful signal of backing for the peace process. "It is urgent to stabilize the Palestinian economy and implement measures on the ground that will improve the daily lives of Palestinians," said Sarkozy's spokesman David Martinon.

The Palestinian development plan has been drawn up by the occupied West Bank-based government of the economist Salam Fayyad, whom Abbas appointed prime minister when the Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in June.

Fayyad said his government had undertaken important economic reforms which should reassure donors that their money will not be wasted. "The reforms are not abstract slogans but concrete actions which we have taken. I can say with certainty that Palestinian financial management is no longer a cause for concern," he said. The Palestinians say the largest chunk of development aid would go to projects in education, health and women's rights.

Conference members are expected to urge Israel - which operates 550 checkpoints in the occupied West Bank - to gradually lift restrictions on movement between Palestinian towns and villages, while asking the Palestinians for a big push to improve security conditions. Between 30 and 40 percent of projects would be in the Gaza Strip - with guarantees to ensure funds do not reach the Hamas militants in control of the territory, according to French and Palestinian sources.

Hamas, uninvited to Annapolis, has decried the US-led peace talks. And alongside an Israeli plan to construct 307 new homes in occupied East Jerusalem which under international law and previous agreements is illegal, the renewed violence between Hamas and the Israeli Army is seen as a primary impediment to the renewed process.

In what officials called a goodwill gesture to the Palestinian Authority, Israel on Sunday allowed 491 residents of the Gaza Strip to travel to Saudi Arabia for the hajj pilgrimage. The pilgrims traveled across Israel by bus to the occupied West Bank town of Jericho from where they would go to Jordan's capital Amman to fly to Saudi Arabia.

Another group of roughly the same number of pilgrims depart Monday, according to Ashraf al-Ajrami, Palestinian minister for prisoners' affairs, who said the agreement called for 930 pilgrims in all to leave from the Gaza Strip. The gesture, however, could hardly erase the mutual aggressions between Israel and Hamas in the last week.

Israeli forces arrested 25 Hamas members, including a member of Parliament, in early Sunday morning raids in Nablus, Palestinian officials said. Those arrested included lawmaker Ahmad al-Haj Ali, as well as a former deputy Cabinet minister and two city council representatives, all Hamas members, Palestinian security officials said. The Israeli military said troops made overnight arrests in an operation targeting Hamas operatives in Nablus. In addition, three members of the Hamas military wing were wounded in an Israeli air strike on the Gaza Strip early on Sunday, Palestinian medics said. The three members of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades were hit in Gaza City by a missile fired from an Israeli aircraft, they said.

Also on Sunday, a rocket fired from Gaza hit a nearby Kibbutz, badly injuring an Israeli toddler. As international donors gather to bolster Abbas, Hamas has attempted to demonstrate its own strength, holding a mass rally on Saturday commemorating the movement's 20th anniversary. The rally's attendance was estimated at over 250,000. Given the Palestinian divide, Israeli Primer Minister Ehud Olmert has raised certain security concerns regarding the donors conference.

For Israel, Olmert said, "the central issue ... is the Palestinian Authority's ability to deal as it should with the subject of security, to eradicate the terror organizations, and ensure there will not be terrorist activity against Israel." In light of the attacks and residual animosities, a French diplomat said: "The two [sides] have to move forwards in tandem," though he said the funds would not be strictly tied to this condition.