Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah warned on Monday that the “vicious Gaza genocide is the greatest test to the international order.”
Speaking at the “Cairo Ministerial Conference to Enhance the Humanitarian Response in Gaza”, he stressed the need to end the suffering of the Palestinian people, while warning that the current escalation may lead to the expansion of the conflict in the region.
The spillover in the region may result in a wide-scale war that would be difficult to contain, he went on to say.
The humanitarian crisis in Palestine has reached “unbearable levels and it cannot be allowed to deteriorate further,” he said, noting that nearly 44,000 Palestinians have been killed by the “barbaric war machine and over 100,000 have been wounded and nearly 350,000 are living in disastrous inhumane conditions.”
He slammed Israel for “committing massacres against women, children and the elderly, destroying infrastructure in Gaza and adopting siege tactics and displacement that has targeted nearly 2 million people.”
“These tactics only deepen the suffering and fuel extremism in the region, expand the scope of the conflict and undermine opportunities for coexistence and sustainable peace,” the FM warned.
Prince Faisal underlines the importance of an immediate and permanent ceasefire and exerting all possible efforts to avoid the conflict from expanding.
Moreover, he urged an end to impunity and for holding officials to account for the crimes that have been committed in Gaza, while calling for ensuring the unimpeded delivery of aid.
Furthermore, he expressed Saudi Arabia’s condemnation of Israeli attacks on humanitarian workers and its undermining of relief efforts.
He also slammed the Israeli Knesset’s legislation to ban UNRWA, warning that it would have catastrophic consequences on Gaza and the West Bank.
He stressed that Saudi Arabia has never spared an effort in providing aid to the victims of Israeli assaults, saying that since the eruption of the crisis, it has offered projects and programs in Gaza worth over 500 million riyals and over six tons of relief aid, such as food, shelter and medicine.
Prince Faisal said the “catastrophic conditions in the region must force us to exert more efforts to prevent the conflict from expanding by tackling the root causes of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”
He called for a return to “serious and effective dialogue to achieve peace according to the two-state solution, relevant international resolutions and 2002 Arab Peace Initiative.”
