Sisi: Int’l community bears responsibility to work for unconditional Gaza ceasefire

CAIRO – 11 November 2023: Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said the international community, especially the Security Council, bears a direct responsibility to work seriously and decisively to achieve an immediate, sustainable and unconditional ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

In a speech at the Joint Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit held in Riyadh on Saturday, Sisi said the international community and the Security Council also have the responsibility to halt of all practices that aim to forcibly displace Palestinians to any place outside their land.

He called for the international community to assume its responsibility to ensure the security of innocent Palestinian civilians and ensure safe, rapid and sustainable access for humanitarian aid.

He added that Israel bears its international responsibility, being the occupying force.

Sisi also affirmed the need for the international community to reach a formula for the settlement of the conflict based on the two-state solution and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, along the borders of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

He urged an international investigation into all violations committed against international law.

‘Maintaining minimum credibility’

“The extraordinary Islamic-Arab summit comes while time hangs heavy for the innocent civilians in Gaza, who are being killed, besieged and are suffering from inhumane practices,” Sisi said.

He added that such practices “take us back to the Middle Ages, necessitating a firm position by the international community if it wants to maintain the minimum level of its political and moral credibility.”

The president said that the situation in Gaza “reveals double-standards, the imbalance of sound logic and the collapse of humanitarian claims, which, unfortunately, fail miserably in this revealing test.”

Collective punishment ‘unacceptable’

Sisi reiterated condemnation of the targeting, killing and intimidation of innocent civilians of the two sides, noting that Egypt has also condemned all acts violating the international law and the international humanitarian law.

He condemned the collective punishment policies against the Gaza people, including killing, besieging and forcibly displacing them, as “unacceptable,” saying that such policies cannot take place under the pretext of "self-defense."

“Egypt has repeatedly warned against the consequences of unilateral policies and it warns now that failure to stop the war in Gaza portends the expansion of military confrontations in the region,” Sisi said.

“Despite self-restraint attempts, the prolonged attacks and their unprecedented brutality are enough to change the equation and its calculations overnight,” he added.