By Nidal al-Mughrabi
Sept 23 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's Board of Peace unveiled a $2.45 billion plan on Wednesday to begin rebuilding Gaza, but officials acknowledged it faces an uncertain future as Israel and Hamas remain at odds over terms of a US-backed ceasefire.
The proposal, laid out by board officials at an event during the UN General Assembly in New York, consists of 66 programs that would rehabilitate Gaza's infrastructure and economy, destroyed by two years of full-scale Israeli
military assault.
It was the latest plan aimed at advancing Trump's Gaza ceasefire, which was announced nearly a year ago but has failed to halt Israeli attacks on Gaza, including one on Wednesday that killed four people including a Hamas official.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in New York: "Obviously this is a longterm project. It's not something that can happen in six months. But at least gives people a hope. Here’s the future that awaits you if everyone does their part."
Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, who devised the Gaza plan while backing Israel's right to "finish the job" in Gaza if Hamas does not disarm, acknowledged the proposal faced "different delays on different things, for whatever reason."
"We're just refining, sharpening the axe, getting ready for when we get to the time to cut the tree," Kushner said. "And hopefully, that will be very, very soon."
ISRAEL, HAMAS DISPUTE TROOP WITHDRAWAL, DISARMAMENT
Nearly a year after a ceasefire ended major fighting in Gaza, reconstruction has yet to begin with negotiators failing to agree conditions for Hamas to lay down its weapons and Israel to withdraw its troops.
Most buildings have been destroyed and more than 2 million residents are confined to around a third of the enclave's territory, mostly in tents or crowded rooms in damaged buildings among the ruins.
The Board of Peace plan announced on Wednesday estimates physical damage in Gaza at $35.2 billion and says full recovery and reconstruction will require about $71.4 billion over the next decade.
Its plan calls for repairing border crossings, restoring electricity and water infrastructure, deploying 25,000 portable solar power kits and permanently filling tunnels beneath sites needed for priority reconstruction projects.
Nickolay Mladenov, the board's lead Gaza envoy, said that he and other officials do not want Gaza to go back to the way it was before the war.
"We want to give people a new chance, and we want to make sure that both the Palestinians in Gaza and Israeli communities living across the border have a chance to put behind them this fear of violence that has driven their lives for so many years," Mladenov said.
(Reporting by Anusha Shah in Bengaluru and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; Editing by Alex Richardson, Xevi Fontdegloria and Howard Goller)
