IMF, World Bank members look at Gaza reconstruction, challenges ahead

Top finance officials from around the world this week underscored their willingness to help rebuild the Palestinian enclave of Gaza as the World Bank and United Nations worked to finalize a new cost estimate of $70 billion.



Members of the ministerial-level Development Committee that advises the World Bank and International Monetary Fund discussed the challenges involved during a meeting on Thursday, World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said.



"We're all very, very appreciative that there's a ceasefire and that the killing has stopped, that hostages have been brought home, that Palestinians can get food," Okonjo-Iweala said. "We hope that it will just lead to the next phase and that that will happen peacefully."



A U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants has halted two years of devastating war, but U.N. officials say aid convoys are struggling to reach famine-hit areas of north Gaza due to war-damaged roads and the closure of key routes.