Arab FMs, EU Foreign Affairs Council Discuss Gaza War

Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah at the Brussels meeting on Monday. (SPA)
Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah at the Brussels meeting on Monday. (SPA)
TT

Arab FMs, EU Foreign Affairs Council Discuss Gaza War

Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah at the Brussels meeting on Monday. (SPA)
Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah at the Brussels meeting on Monday. (SPA)

The members of the Ministerial Committee assigned by the Joint Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit met in Brussels on Monday with European Union Foreign Affairs Council to discuss the war on Gaza.

Chaired by Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah, the committee included Qatari Prime Minister and FM Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Jordan's Deputy PM and FM Dr. Ayman Al-Safadi, and Egyptian FM Sameh Shoukry.

They discussed the dangerous developments in Gaza and the Israel’s ongoing military operation that is claiming the lives of innocent civilians, including the recent “appalling targeting of the tents of displaced Palestinians near the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)” in Rafah.

The Ministerial Committee “stressed the need for the international community to fulfill its responsibility to intervene immediately to stop the massacres committed by the Israeli forces and to stop the deepening of the unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe that the Palestinian people are experiencing.”

It reiterated the importance of creating serious political conditions for the establishment of a Palestinian state according to the 1967 border with East Jerusalem as its capital, and in line with the relevant international resolutions.

It expressed its rejection of “discussing the future of the Gaza Strip in isolation from the Palestinian issue.”

It called for “confronting all flagrant violations committed by the Israeli forces against the Palestinian people” and stressed the importance of holding the Israel accountable for the ongoing violations in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.



Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
TT

Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)

Israel’s military ordered the evacuation Saturday of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis, including parts of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where thousands are seeking refuge.

The order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It's the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel's punishing air and ground campaign.

On Monday, after the evacuation order, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, citing figures from Nasser Hospital.

The area is part of a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to throughout the war. Much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel's estimates. That's more than half Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

The war began with an assault by Hamas fighters on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.