GAZA CITY — The United Nations issued a worldwide appeal Thursday for $613 million to help Palestinians recover from Israel's military assault on the Gaza Strip.
But U.N. and Palestinian officials warned that the effort would fall short unless Israel and Egypt ended their blockade and allowed construction material, heavy equipment and parts to enter the enclave.
Israel and Egypt have kept Gaza's borders tightly controlled or closed since Hamas, a militant Islamic group, seized power in the territory in June 2007. Both countries are resisting international pressure to ease the restrictions after Israel's 22-day offensive aimed at halting rocket attacks into its territory. Nearly 1,300 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed in the offensive and thousands of homes and other buildings were destroyed, with damage estimated at $2 billion.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the call for donations at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "Help is indeed needed urgently," he said, to meet critical needs for food, clean water, shelter, medicine and restoration of basic services.
President Obama's Middle East envoy, former Sen. George J. Mitchell, said during a visit to the West Bank on Thursday that ending the blockade would also help shore up a cease-fire that took effect early last week.
For a third straight day, sporadic violence breached the calm in Gaza. Palestinian medical officials said an Israeli airstrike wounded 17 civilians, including 10 schoolchildren and a pregnant woman in the town of Khan Yunis. The Israeli military said the attack was aimed at a Hamas militant on a motorcycle, who was also wounded.
Israeli warplanes bombed Palestinian smuggling tunnels under Gaza's border with Egypt, and militants fired at least two rockets from Gaza into Israel.
Mitchell spoke to reporters after meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, a secular rival of Hamas. The envoy said he wanted Gaza's borders opened on the basis of a 2005 agreement that put Abbas' forces in control of the main Egypt-Gaza passage, with European monitors deployed to prevent arms smuggling.
The U.S.-brokered accord collapsed in 2007 when Hamas, which won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, ousted Abbas' forces from Gaza and the Europeans left.
