Arab leaders attend the 34th Arab League summit in Baghdad, Iraq, on May 17, 2025. (Credit: Thaier Al-Sudani.)
Arab summit held on Saturday in Baghdad called for increased international pressure to ‘stop the bloodshed’ in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, where Israel has announced an intensification of its offensive.
"We urge the international community, especially the countries that can influence (the situation, editor's note), to assume their moral and legal responsibilities to apply pressure, stop the bloodshed and ensure the entry of urgent humanitarian aid" into the besieged Palestinian territory, according to the closing statement. The text also calls for funding an Arab plan to rebuild the Gaza Strip, unveiled at a previous Arab League summit in Cairo in March.
On Saturday, the closing statement "urges countries, international and regional financial institutions, to quickly provide the necessary financial support" for this project. The initiative proposes a fund to finance the reconstruction of the Palestinian territory with $53 billion over five years. It had been presented as an alternative to President Donald Trump's plan to place the Gaza Strip under American control.
The summit also welcomed Trump's decision this week to lift sanctions on war-torn Syria.
During the summit, Iraq promised on Saturday to allocate $40 million for reconstruction in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. Referring to an initiative aimed at creating an "Arab Fund to support .... reconstruction after crises, conflicts, and wars", Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia al-Sudani announced his country's contribution of $20 million "to rebuild Gaza’" and a similar amount "to rebuild Lebanon".