Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt  - World leaders who gathered for a donors conference in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm al-Sheikh on Monday urged swift action to rebuild the battered Gaza Strip, and pledged billions of dollars in reconstruction aid.

By Monday afternoon, donors came close to exceeding the 2.8 billion dollars in aid that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had requested.

Persian Gulf states Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar pledged 1.6 billion dollars, and said they would set up an office to handle the donations so the aid would not pass through either the Palestinian National Authority or Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007.

A US contribution of 900 million dollars, a European Commission contribution of 553 million, plus promises from among others Germany, Turkey, Italy and Japan, brought the total to close 3 billion dollars.

"What we are afraid of is that the Israelis will simply destroy what we rebuild, as they have so many times before," Arab League Secretary General Amr Mussa told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

"The current situation is the result of neglect and of Israel's disregard for the Geneva Conventions," he said.

"The Arab League has dispatched a fact-finding mission of international jurists to investigate Israeli war crimes in Gaza," Mussa added. "When they submit their report we will explore means of holding Israel legally accountable."

In his opening address Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak warned that "the situation in the Middle East is in greater danger of exploding than any other time before."

Mubarak stressed the importance of creating a mechanism for receiving and disbursing aid "that has the confidence of international donors,".

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday said the US had "worked with the Palestinian Authority to install safeguards that will ensure that our funding is only used where, and for whom, it is intended, and does not end up in the wrong hands."

Some 600 million of the US aid package would go to the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank, she said, with the remainder going to humanitarian assistance for Gazans.

Clinton urged Palestinians "to break the cycle of rejection and resistance, to cut the strings pulled by those who exploit the suffering of innocent people, and show the world what the talent and skills of an exceptional people can build and create."

Leaders of Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, were not present at Monday's conference. After talks with representatives Abbas' rival Fatah faction in Cairo on Thursday night, Hamas agreed in principle to join a national unity government.

"Palestinians have no choice but to agree and reconcile," Abbas said. "Our rebuilding efforts will be threatened in the absence of a political solution."

Clinton said the US was committed to engage in efforts to establish such a peace agreement "with vigor and intensity."

Opening the Gaza Strip's borders, a key Palestinian demand, would be an important first step in reconstructing the Gaza Strip and establishing a lasting peace agreement, world leaders said on Monday.

"The situation at the border crossings is intolerable," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told conference delegates. "Aid workers do not have access. Essential commodities cannot get in ... There is no concrete or steel to build homes or shelters."

"The people of Gaza cannot and should not wait any longer," Ban said. "I call for action now."

"Gaza must no longer be an open-air prison," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said. "But the opening of this territory must be paired with the closure of the tunnels" used to smuggle weapons and commodities from Egypt into the Gaza Strip.

"We all know the parameters of peace," Sarkozy said. "What are we waiting for? A government that we like? The longer we wait, the fewer wise men there will be."

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, stressed the urgency of striking a peace agreement, saying the conflict in the Middle East was "not a regional problem, but a global problem."

He called on Palestinian factions and Israeli political parties to come together to form governments "willing to make compromises for the sake of peace."

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the conference "an impressive signal" of the world's commitment to the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.

"We hope that what will now be built will not be destroyed again," he told dpa before jos departure from Egypt.

More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed in Israel's 22-day offensive in late December and January.

On Monday Acting Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said that 4,000 homes were destroyed and 11,500 were damaged. Fixing them, he said, would cost some 501 million dollars. dpa