JAKARTA: Indonesia’s new government called on the UN Security Council on Tuesday to take “decisive action” to end Israel’s war on Gaza, as Tel Aviv further tightens its deadly siege of the enclave’s northern region.
Over the past two weeks, Israeli forces have cut the entry of any medical and food aid to northern Gaza as they escalated air and ground attacks targeting people and healthcare facilities, while further driving hundreds of thousands of people trapped there to the verge of starvation.
Under the leadership of newly inaugurated President Prabowo Subianto, who was sworn in on Sunday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged Israel to stop attacking the besieged enclave.
“Indonesia demands that Israel immediately stop its attacks across all of Gaza, particularly northern Gaza, and urges the UN Security Council to take decisive action to end the war without delay,” the ministry said in a statement.
“Indonesia strongly condemns the total blockade and Israeli attacks that have caused severe hunger and the deaths of countless Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza.”
Subianto reiterated Indonesia’s long-standing support for Palestine during his first presidential speech and said that the country was ready “to help our brothers who became victims of an unfair war.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also highlighted on Tuesday Israeli attacks on healthcare facilities and medical workers in northern Gaza, including at the Indonesia Hospital in Beit Lahiya, as “clear violations” of international law.
At least two patients have died at the hospital funded by the Indonesian nongovernmental organization Medical Emergency Rescue Committee, as dozens of people remain trapped inside after Israeli strikes that began on Saturday.
The hospital was one of just three partially functional hospitals treating critical patients and sheltering displaced Palestinians in northern Gaza.
“The medics and patients are still holding out inside the hospital. They don’t want to be evacuated because the patients are not in a condition to do so,” Sarbini Abdul Murad, chairman of MER-C’s board of trustees in Jakarta, told Arab News.
Murad said he was last in touch with the hospital staff on Tuesday morning.
“They destroyed solar panels and power generators and are withholding food and medical supplies from the Indonesia Hospital,” he said. “We are very concerned about the people who are trapped inside.”
Over a year since Israel launched its war on Gaza, its military has killed at least 42,700 people and injured more than 100,000. The real death toll is suspected to be much higher, with estimates published by medical journal The Lancet indicating that, as of July, it could be more than 186,000.
