ATHENS: Egypt’s foreign minister, on a visit to Greece on Wednesday, described the international response to the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza as shameful and urged powerful Western nations to increase pressure on Israel.
“The international community should be ashamed of the tragic situation unfolding in Gaza and the devastating actions being carried out by Israel,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told reporters in Athens.
“What is unfolding is a human tragedy, and the suffering witnessed is a stain on the conscience of the international community,” he said.
Widespread reports of hunger in Gaza have heightened international concern over the devastating consequences of Israeli military operations launched nearly two years ago, following deadly attacks by Hamas-led militants inside Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Egyptian minister described Israel’s military campaign in the territory as a “systematic genocide,” but reiterated his government’s position that it “firmly rejects any displacement of the Palestinian people from their ancestral lands.”
Abdelatty held a two-hour meeting with Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis to discuss a planned undersea electricity grid connector between the two countries and an ongoing dispute between Greece and Libya over sea boundaries for offshore oil and gas exploration.
Greece and Egypt are also in talks over the legal status of the sixth-century Monastery of Saint Catherine in Egypt’s Sinai Desert.
Gerapetritis said that he had received assurances Wednesday of Cairo’s continued cooperation on both issues.
Egyptian minister calls West’s response to Gaza suffering shameful
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Egyptian minister calls West’s response to Gaza suffering shameful
- “The international community should be ashamed of the tragic situation unfolding in Gaza and the devastating actions being carried out by Israel,” Abdelatty said
Algeria says army kills four ‘terrorists’
The Algerian defense ministry said the army killed four “terrorists” on Sunday in a mountainous region of the northwest.
A ministry statement said the operation was still ongoing in the Djebel Amrouna area about 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Algiers.
It said soldiers had “eliminated four terrorists,” and seized four Kalashnikov assault rifles and ammunition.
The army regularly announces the arrests or deaths of “terrorists,” the authorities’ term for armed Islamists still active since the North African country’s 1992-2002 civil war.
Despite a 2005 Charter for Peace and Reconciliation aimed at turning the page on the violence, armed groups continue to mount sporadic attacks.
The so-called “black decade” of the civil war officially left 200,000 people dead.
According to the defense ministry, so far this year the army has “killed 21 terrorists, captured 8 others, and 38 terrorists have repented.”
It said “369 individuals supporting terrorist groups were arrested” in the same period, and more than 100 weapons were recovered.
