The acting president, Pedro Sánchez, participated this Saturday in the sudden summit organized by the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al Sisi, on the occasion of the war between Israel and Hamas. About thirty countries and international organizations met with the intention of finding mechanisms to reduce the escalation of tensions in the region and find a way to continue providing humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip.
During his speech, Sánchez urged to achieve a “humanitarian ceasefire” like the one proposed minutes before by the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres. “This ongoing spiral of violence cannot continue; it is time for the international community to act,” he said. “We must focus on what is urgent and what is important, we need to protect the civilian population,” added Sánchez, who currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, calling for the protection of the rights of “all civilians.” “and made reference to the 200 civilian hostages that Hamas is holding captive but also to the 2.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who have been suffering from Israeli bombings for two weeks.
Sánchez, one of the few leaders who has not traveled to Jerusalem, has shown his support for the Israeli authorities, again condemned the Hamas attack and stressed “Israel’s right to defend itself.” However, he called for the needs of the Palestinian population to be respected and the protection of the region’s civilian population to be respected. Sánchez reiterated that Hamas must release all hostages and appealed to the international community “to ensure that Israelis and other nationals can return home safely.”
On the resolution of the conflict, the acting president reiterated the two-state solution and asked the international community not to ignore the conflict. “We thought we could live without paying much attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” he declared, adding: “If the international community does not act, the situation could get worse.”
Sánchez attended the meeting with the acting Foreign Minister, José Manuel Alabares. The meeting coincided with the opening of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, after days of negotiations between the United States, Israel, Egypt and the UN. Twenty trucks from the Egyptian Red Crescent entered the territory and provided aid to the Palestinian Red Crescent. “The people of Gaza need a commitment to much, much more: a continued delivery of aid to Gaza at the scale they need. We are working with all relevant parties to make this happen,” Guterres declared during his remarks.