Egypt welcomes UN-sponsored mechanism to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza

CAIRO – 23 December 2023: Egypt welcomed Friday the establishment of an international mechanism for delivering humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip which is suffering tragic humanitarian conditions.

In a statement by the Foreign Ministry, Egypt also welcomed the appointment of a high-level UN coordinator to facilitate the entry, coordination, monitoring and verification of aid within the Gaza Strip.

Egypt considered the adoption of the Security Council resolution as an important and positive step towards alleviating the severity of the humanitarian suffering affecting Palestinian civilians and the basic services system in the Gaza Strip.

However, it is an insufficient step because the UNSC resolution did not include a demand for an immediate ceasefire as a guarantee for providing an enabling environment for the implementation of all the provisions and the only way to stop the bloodshed in Gaza, the statement added.

The UNSC resolution comes along the implementation of a resolution of the recent Arab Islamic Summit, which called for breaking the siege on the Gaza Strip, opening the various corridors for humanitarian access to the enclave, establishing a mechanism to monitor aid shipments under the auspices of the United Nations to overcome the obstacles placed by Israel on the entry of aid, rejecting all attempts to forcibly displace Palestinians, and demanding the necessity of respecting the rules of international law and international humanitarian law, not endangering the lives of civilians, and refraining from targeting them or targeting humanitarian aid, the statement read.

Egypt considered that the issuance of such a resolution, with its essentially humanitarian content, places the international community before its political and humanitarian responsibility to quickly implement its provisions, to stop the daily suffering of the residents of the Gaza Strip under the yoke of continuous Israeli bombing, the policy of siege, forced displacement, and the destruction of infrastructure.

Egypt reiterated its continued work closely with international parties supporting peace to reach a complete ceasefire that preserves the lives of Palestinian civilians, reduces the impact of the humanitarian crisis, and re-launches a serious peace process that leads to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders within the two-state vision.