Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi renewed a warning against Israel’s plans to launch a ground military operation in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, saying that this would threaten the lives of more than 1.5 million displaced people who have taken shelter in the area.
Sisi was speaking on Wednesday during a joint press conference with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who visited Cairo.
According to the Arab World Press, the Egyptian president stressed “the inevitability of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Israel’s end to its hostilities.”
He emphasized that the “practices of the Israeli occupation forces against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip constitute a formidable and flagrant violation of international law and international humanitarian law.”
“Egypt has repeatedly warned against Israel’s plans to make the Gaza Strip completely uninhabitable. It also cautions against the Israeli plan to launch a ground military operation against the Palestinian city of Rafah, which jeopardies the lives of more than one and a half million already displaced people, whose protection falls on Israel as stipulated in the rules of intentional law,” Sisi told the news conference.
He also warned against escalation in the West Bank, saying: “The events unfolding in Gaza, in full view of the world, are taking place in conjunction with policies that obstruct the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank, including unleashing settler violence, carrying out demolition and expulsion operations, conducting military incursions and confiscating land in West Bank cities, in addition to settlement expansions and cementing the occupation.”
The Egyptian president reiterated that the “suffering of the Palestinian people in all parts of the occupied Palestinian territories over the past decades will not end except through the recognition of the State of Palestine, enjoying full membership of the United Nations and the implementation of the two-state solution, in accordance with international references.”
