Egyptian president suggests 4 steps to end Gaza War

CAIRO – 11 June 2024: President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi delivered Tuesday a speech at the Urgent Humanitarian Response for Gaza Conference he had called for along with King Abdullah II of Jordan and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres suggesting four steps to end the war.

First, President Sisi said Egypt welcomes UN Security Council Resolution 2735, adopted yesterday (June 10, 2024) and other relevant resolutions and demands their full implementation. He added that Egypt reiterates the crucial need for an urgent, comprehensive and sustainable ceasefire in the Gaza Strip; the immediate release of all hostages and detainees; full respect for international law and international humanitarian law, including the necessity to protect civilians and not to target the infrastructure, UN personnel, or medical and service staff in the Gaza Strip.

Second is obliging Israel to end the siege and stop using mass starvation as a collective punishment for the people of Gaza. This is in addition to committing Israel to remove all obstacles impeding the immediate, sustainable, and adequate flow of humanitarian and relief aid to the Gaza Strip through all crossings, to secure conditions conducive to the delivery and distribution of this aid to the people of the Strip in all areas, and to withdraw from the city of Rafah.

Third is providing the necessary support and funding to The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), allowing it to carry out its vital and key role in assisting Palestinian civilians. This is in addition to working toward implementing humanitarian affairs-related Security Council resolutions, including Resolution 2720, and expediting the launch of the necessary UN mechanisms to facilitate the entry and distribution of relief aid in the Gaza Strip.

Fourth is creating conditions conducive to the immediate return of the displaced Palestinians, who were forced to abandon their homes in the Gaza Strip as a result of the Israeli war, to their areas of residence.

The president also noted saying, "the innocent Palestinian people of Gaza are besieged by disgraceful killing, mass starvation, and unspeakable terror and are subjected to both physical and psychological confinement, that stand as a stark reproach to the collective conscience of humanity. Today, they gaze upon us with eyes pleading with sorrow and hope, yearning for our meeting to offer them a glimmer of hope for a different tomorrow that restores their lost human dignity and their legitimate right to live in peace. They hope for a future that reestablishes some confidence in the international law and in the justice and credibility of the so-called "Rules-based International Order.""

"The responsibility for the unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in the Gaza Strip lies squarely with the Israeli side. This crisis is the deliberate outcome of a devastating, vindictive war waged against the Strip, its people, its infrastructure, and its medical system. This outrageous war has employed mass starvation and brutal siege to render the Gaza Strip uninhabitable and forcibly displace its inhabitants from their lands, with utter disregard for international conventions and moral humanitarian principles and standards," the Egyptian president added.