REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, CAIRO - US Secretary of State John Kerry called on Sunday for a renewed commitment to achieving Middle East peace, saying a lasting deal between Israel, the Palestinians and all their neighbors could be achieved.

But prospects for a renewed peace process appeared dim as Kerry offered no specifics on how to restart negotiations in his speech to a Gaza reconstruction conference in Cairo.

"Out of this conference must come not just money but a renewed commitment from everybody to work for peace that meets the aspirations of all, for Israelis, for Palestinians for all people of this region," Kerry told the conference. "And I promise you the full commitment of president Obama, myself and the United States to try to do that," he said.

At the conference Kerry also announced an additional 212 million USD in US aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which was badly damaged during a conflict with Israel in July and August in which 2,100 Palestinians died, most of them civilians.

An estimated 18,000 homes and vital infrastructure were destroyed in the seven-week war. The Palestinians have put the full cost of reconstruction at about 4 billion USD over three years.

Germany on Sunday also announced it would contribute 50 million euros (63 million USD) to reconstruction efforts in Gaza.

"We can't allow the people in Gaza to sink into despair," German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement.

The British ambassador to Egypt, John Casson, told Reuters London would provide 32 million USD for reconstruction.

Egypt, the most populous Arab country and which brokered the current ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinians in August, used the conference to renew its call for a wider Middle East peace deal based on a 2002 Arab initiative, which Israel has rejected.

"We should turn this moment into a real starting point to achieve a peace that secures stability and flourishing and renders the dream of coexistence a reality, and this is the vision of the Arab peace initiative," Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said in his opening speech.

The Arab peace initiative was floated by Saudi Arabia at an Arab League summit in Beirut in 2002 and offers full recognition of the Jewish state, but only if it gives up all land seized in the 1967 Middle East war and agrees to a "just solution" for Palestinian refugees.

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