Rami Hamdallah
Rami HamdallahFlash 90

Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah said Tuesday he has asked for $3.8 billion in urgent aid to help rebuild Gaza following the fighting this past summer.

Hamdallah told The Associated Press (AP) that Saudi Arabia has pledged $500 million and other nations have indicated they would join in.

He spoke at the end of a donor meeting lead by Norway on the sidelines of a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.

The aid request comes as PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is preparing to submit a resolution to the UN Security Council seeking a three-year timetable for Israel’s withdrawal from Judea and Samaria.

The UN and the Palestinian government earlier this month called for $551 million (427 million euros) in aid to help hundreds of thousands of Gazans affected by the conflict's aftermath.

It is unclear how much of that money will actually be used to help Palestinian Arab civilians, however, as the IDF proved during the fifty-day Operation Protective Edge that Hamas spent billions of dollars in reconstruction money and materials on weapons and terror tunnels. 

Even without the need to rebuild Gaza in the aftermath of the fighting, the PA’s leaders continue to claim that they are suffering from an economic crisis and have more than once asked for foreign donations. In 2012, the Arab League pledged to transfer a monthly sum of 100 million dollars to as a “financial safety net” to the PA..