VIENNA, Austria - The international community must live up to its responsibility and help fund the reconstruction of a war-ravaged Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon, the country's prime minister said Monday.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora urged delegates at a one-day donor's conference in Austria to contribute toward rebuilding the Nahr el-Bared camp and surrounding areas - a project estimated to cost US$450 million (€288 million).

The camp, on the outskirts of Tripoli, was devastated last year by three months of heavy fighting between the Lebanese army and al-Qaida-inspired militants of the Fatah Islam group holed up inside.

Some 5,449 Palestinian families have been waiting a year for the camp to be reconstructed, according to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees.

"The scale of the challenge before us is enormous," Saniora told the conference. "Let this be our wake up call, we are counting on your full support."

Up to 400,000 refugees live in Lebanon's crowded camps, most of them Palestinians whose families were forced from their homes nearly 60 years ago with the creation of Israel.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said the camp's devastation showed the need to urgently resolve the Palestinian question, and promised to raise US$10 million (€6.4 million) through a public fundraising campaign.

The US$450 million (€288 million) project is being done jointly by Lebanon, the World Bank and the United Nations. Half of the costs should be covered by the international community, including the World Bank and other organizations, and half by the Arab side, according to Arab League Secretary-General Amre Moussa.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency says that restoring Nahr el-Bared will essentially mean building of a new town for 27,000 people at an estimated cost of US$282 million (€181 million).

Construction should begin in early 2009 and end in mid-2011, it said.

Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik, who is hosting the conference, said the project should receive "lasting support" at the conference.

"We want the people of Lebanon to know that we care about them," Plassnik said.

The conference was attended by delegations from more than 50 countries and international organizations.

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