Cairo: It is imperative to put in place an immediate truce in the Gaza Strip that would halt the "mass genocide" committed by Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinians, the Arab League's chief said on Wednesday. Slamming the "barbaric" war Israeli occupation forces have waged against the Palestinian enclave, Ahmed AbulGheit said amid the Cairo-based bloc's 163rd ordinary session on a foreign ministerial-level in the Egyptian capital, citing the rigid blockade Israeli forces have imposed on Gaza as a case in point.
According to Kuwait News Agency, he went on to deplore such actions as tantamount to "ethnic cleansing," warning of efforts to pressure the international community, whom he castigated for their "embarrassing silence," into "accepting" the matter, added the official.
The pan-Arab bloc's chief went on to reiterate the wider Arab region's utter rejection of these events, pushing to expedite reconstruction efforts in the Gaza Strip that would pave the way for a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict, saying that such a course was "irreversible." Addressing the gathering, Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi emphasized that peace and security in the Middle East are inextricably linked to Palestinian rights to statehood, based on 1967 border lines with East Jerusalem as the capital of an independent Palestinian state, he underlined.
The Jordanian top diplomat spoke of the need to ratchet up pan-Arab cooperation in the face of existential challenges, saying that the Hashemite Kingdom will continue to work tirelessly to halt the "Israeli escalation," which he said threatens peace in the region and throws the two-state solution to the conflict into peril.
In his speech, Yemen's Foreign Minister Shaya Zindani cited a "broad consensus" among Arab states over some pressing matters, saying that his country has long sought to keep Arab states on the same page for the region's "best interest," citing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the bloc's core concern.
He echoed the sentiments of his Jordanian counterpart by pushing for the implementation of a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict, in line with relevant international laws and conventions, including the Arab Peace Initiative, he said.