JAKARTA: Indonesia will not give up and would continue working with Saudi Arabia and other Organization of Islamic Cooperation countries to rally international support to end Israel’s war in Gaza, Minister of Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi said on Thursday.

Indonesia was part of a ministerial committee assigned by the extraordinary joint Arab-Islamic Summit last month to push for an end to the ongoing Israeli military campaign in the besieged enclave where more than 18,600 Palestinians have been killed.

Members of the committee, chaired by Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, have met officials representing each of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to increase pressure on the West to reject Israel’s justification of its deadly bombardment of Gaza as self-defense.

“Along with a number of OIC countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Turkiye, Qatar, and Nigeria, Indonesia continues to be on the forefront in rallying support to end the war in Gaza,” Marsudi said.

“The challenge we are facing is not easy. But we will not give up and will continue to try.”

For decades, Indonesia has been a staunch supporter of Palestine, with its people and government seeing Palestinian statehood as mandated by the nation’s constitution, which calls for the abolition of colonialism.

Since the latest escalation of Israeli violence, Indonesian officials have been rallying international support for Palestinians on various multilateral platforms, while thousands of people have participated in solidarity marches throughout the Asian nation in the last two months.

At the UN in Geneva this week, Marsudi pledged to triple Indonesia’s contributions to the UN relief agency for Palestine and vowed to strengthen global solidarity with the Palestinians.

She also rejected Israel’s justification of its actions as self-defense at an event commemorating the 75 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Wednesday, calling Tel Aviv’s deadly onslaught “serious human rights violations.”

Fikri Rofiul Haq, a 23-year-old Indonesian volunteer in Gaza, told Arab News that Jakarta’s active support for Palestine gave him hope.

“I hope that what the Indonesian government has been doing will continue until Palestine independence is achieved,” he said. “Not just me, but the people of Gaza have been thankful to Indonesia for its full support of Palestine.”

Haq was a volunteer at the Indonesia Hospital in Gaza’s north when the onslaught began in October. Continued Israeli attacks on the healthcare facility forced him to seek safety in southern Gaza in late November, where he has stayed since.

But even in Khan Younis, the Israeli bombardment did not stop and was “increasingly dangerous,” Haq added, noting that on Thursday alone, two children were killed near his place of stay.

“There’s not enough clean water, and many houses are flooded,” he said. “It is very difficult here for all the displaced people, the situation is very pitiful.”