Nine Arab States Condemn the Targeting of Civilians in Gaza

Black smoke raise from Eastern Gaza City, Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023 following Israeli airstrikes. (AP Photo/Abed Khaled)
Black smoke raise from Eastern Gaza City, Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023 following Israeli airstrikes. (AP Photo/Abed Khaled)
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Nine Arab States Condemn the Targeting of Civilians in Gaza

Black smoke raise from Eastern Gaza City, Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023 following Israeli airstrikes. (AP Photo/Abed Khaled)
Black smoke raise from Eastern Gaza City, Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023 following Israeli airstrikes. (AP Photo/Abed Khaled)

Nine Arab countries called on Thursday for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and an end to the targeting and death of civilians.

“The right to self-defense by the United Nations Charter does not justify blatant violations of humanitarian and international law,” said the statement, signed by the Foreign Ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Morocco.

They rejected “any attempts to liquidate the Palestinian issue at the expense of the Palestinian people and the peoples of the region, or to displace the Palestinian people from their land in any way, considering it a serious violation of international humanitarian law and tantamount to a war crime.”

They called on the UN Security Council to mandate the parties for an immediate and sustainable ceasefire, and affirmed that the failure to describe flagrant violations of international humanitarian law effectively constitutes a green light for the continuation of these practices and complicity in committing them.



ISIS Kills Five Kurdish Fighters in Eastern Syria

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters sit on a vehicle in the north of Raqqa city, Syria. (Reuters file)
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters sit on a vehicle in the north of Raqqa city, Syria. (Reuters file)
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ISIS Kills Five Kurdish Fighters in Eastern Syria

Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters sit on a vehicle in the north of Raqqa city, Syria. (Reuters file)
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters sit on a vehicle in the north of Raqqa city, Syria. (Reuters file)

The ISIS militant group said on Monday it killed five Kurdish fighters in an attack in eastern Syria's Deir Ezzor, according to the group's news agency.

The spokesperson for Syria's Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces Farhad Shami confirmed to Reuters that five members were killed in the attack which he described as "one of deadliest" against the group in a while.

Deir Ezzor city was captured by the ISIS group in 2014, but the Syrian army retook it in 2017.

Former ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a so-called “caliphate” over a quarter of Syria and Iraq in 2014 before he was killed in a raid by US special forces in northwest Syria in 2019 as the group collapsed.

It has been recently trying to stage a comeback in the Middle East, the West and Asia.