DUBAI: Egypt is seeking to reach a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza, increase entry of aid and to allow displaced people in the south of the enclave to move to the north, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi said on Friday.
El-Sisi also warned against the danger of an Israeli incursion into the city of Rafah, where an estimated 1.5 million people have sought shelter next to Gaza’s border with Egypt.
Aid officials have warned of looming famine in the coastal enclave.
“We are talking about reaching a ceasefire in Gaza, meaning a truce, providing the biggest quantity of aid,” El-Sisi said in a message recorded during a visit to a military academy.
This would include “curbing the impact of this famine on people, and also allowing for the people in the center and the south to move toward the north, with a very strong warning against incursion into Rafah,” he said.
“We warned of what is happening, that aid not entering would lead to famine,” El-Sisi said.
Egypt, which fears the displacement of Palestinians crowded near its border, has been trying, along with Qatar and the United States, to mediate between Israel and Hamas to reach an agreement for a ceasefire and the release of Israeli hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners.
On Thursday, Egypt’s foreign minister called on Israel to open land crossings with Gaza to let in more aid.
El-Sisi: Egypt is striving to secure a ceasefire in Gaza
https://arab.news/2cege
El-Sisi: Egypt is striving to secure a ceasefire in Gaza
- Egyptian leader also warns against the danger of an Israeli incursion into the city of Rafah
- An estimated 1.5 million people have sought shelter next to Gaza’s border with Egypt
US lawmakers press Israel to probe strike on reporters in Lebanon
- “The IDF has made no effort, none, to seriously investigate this incident,” Welch said
- Collins called for Washington to publicly acknowledge the attack in which an American citizen was injured
WASHINGTON: Several Democratic lawmakers called Thursday for the Israeli and US governments to fully investigate a deadly 2023 attack by the Israeli military on journalists in southern Lebanon.
The October 13, 2023 airstrike killed Reuters videographer Issam Abdallah and wounded six other reporters, including two from AFP — video journalist Dylan Collins and photographer Christina Assi, who lost her leg.
“We expect the Israeli government to conduct an investigation that meets the international standards and to hold accountable those people who did this,” Senator Peter Welch told a news conference, with Collins by his side.
The lawmaker from Collins’s home state of Vermont said he had been pushing for answers for two years, first from the administration of Democratic president Joe Biden and now from the Republican White House of Donald Trump.
The Israeli government has “stonewalled at every single turn,” Welch added.
“With the Israeli government, we have been extremely patient, and we have done everything we reasonably can to obtain answers and accountability,” he said.
“The IDF has made no effort, none, to seriously investigate this incident,” Welch said, referring to the Israeli military, adding that it has told his office its investigation into the incident is closed.
Collins called for Washington to publicly acknowledge the attack in which an American citizen was injured.
“But I’d also like them to put pressure on their greatest ally in the Middle East, the Israeli government, to bring the perpetrators to account,” he said, echoing the lawmakers who called the attack a “war crime.”
“We’re not letting it go,” Vermont congresswoman Becca Balint said. “It doesn’t matter how long they stonewall us.”
AFP conducted an independent investigation which concluded that two Israeli 120mm tank shells were fired from the Jordeikh area in Israel.
The findings were corroborated by other international probes, including investigations conducted by Reuters, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders.
Unlike Welch’s assertion Thursday that the Israeli probe was over, the IDF told AFP in October that “findings regarding the event have not yet been concluded.”
