Sisi Warns Ethiopia against Wasting Time on GERD

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
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Sisi Warns Ethiopia against Wasting Time on GERD

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi warned Ethiopia on Sunday against wasting time on negotiations related to the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), stressing that his country seeks to reach a balanced agreement on the rules for filling and operating the dam.

Speaking at the opening of the 4th Session of the Cairo Water Week, he said, “I would like to reiterate that we seek to reach, in the shortest time possible and without procrastination, a balanced and legally-binding agreement in this regard, in line with the Presidential Statement (issued on the GERD) by the Security Council in September 2021.”

Last month, the Council urged Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan to resume African Union-led talks to reach a binding deal "within a reasonable timeframe" over the operation of the giant hydropower dam on the Blue Nile.

Egypt and Sudan have been negotiating with Ethiopia for almost 10 years to conclude a legal agreement.

In his speech Sunday, the Egyptian President sought to comfort Ethiopia that such agreement would help achieve Addis Ababa's development goals, which Cairo understands and even supports, and at the same time limit the water, environmental, social and economic harm of this dam on Egypt and Sudan, based on respecting the rules of international law and in a manner that strengthens cooperation and coordination.

Sisi said Egypt has already developed the strategic plan for the management of water resources until the year 2037 at an estimated preliminary cost of $50 billion.

According to Sisi, the Egyptian plan is based on four main pillars: improving the quality of water, developing new water resources, rationalizing the use of the available water resources and enhancing the capacity of the Egyptian irrigation system.

“Egypt is one of the driest countries in the world, receiving the least average rainfall among all countries. This makes Egypt rely almost exclusively on the Nile River, which originates outside its borders,” Sisi revealed.

The Egyptian President urged countries sharing international rivers to uphold the principles of integration and participation, activate the rules of justice and fairness and not to harm the interests of their neighbors.



UN: Nearly 70% of Verified Gaza War Dead Are Women and Children

FILE PHOTO: Palestinians react after a school sheltering displaced people was hit by an Israeli strike, at Beach camp in Gaza City November 7, 2024. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Palestinians react after a school sheltering displaced people was hit by an Israeli strike, at Beach camp in Gaza City November 7, 2024. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo
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UN: Nearly 70% of Verified Gaza War Dead Are Women and Children

FILE PHOTO: Palestinians react after a school sheltering displaced people was hit by an Israeli strike, at Beach camp in Gaza City November 7, 2024. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Palestinians react after a school sheltering displaced people was hit by an Israeli strike, at Beach camp in Gaza City November 7, 2024. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa/File Photo

The UN Human Rights Office said on Friday nearly 70% of the fatalities it has verified in the Gaza war were women and children, and condemned what it called a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law.
The UN tally since the start of the war, in which Israel's military is fighting Hamas militants, includes only fatalities it has managed to verify with three sources, and counting continues.

The 8,119 victims verified is a much lower number than the toll of over 43,000 provided by Palestinian health authorities for the 13-month-old war. But the UN breakdown of the victims' age and gender backs the Palestinian assertion that women and children represent a large portion of those killed in the war.

This finding indicates "a systematic violation of the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law, including distinction and proportionality," the UN rights office said in a statement accompanying the 32-page report.

"It is essential that there is due reckoning with respect to the allegations of serious violations of international law through credible and impartial judicial bodies and that, in the meantime, all relevant information and evidence are collected and preserved," United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not immediately respond to a request by Reuters for comment on the report's findings.

"Our monitoring indicates that this unprecedented level of killing and injury of civilians is a direct consequence of the failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law," Turk said in a statement.

"Tragically, these documented patterns of violations continue unabated, over one year after the start of the war."

His office found that about 80 percent of all the verified deaths in Gaza had occurred in Israeli attacks on residential buildings or similar housing, and that close to 90 percent had died in incidents that killed five or more people.