MUSCAT: Sayyid Badr bin Hamad al Busaidy, Foreign Minister, on Monday discussed the tragic situation in Gaza, during telephonic conversations with a number of Arab counterparts.
The minister exchanged views on the issue during phone calls with Ayman Safadi, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Jordan, Sameh Shoukry, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Arab Republic of Egypt, Nasser Bourita, Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates of the Kingdom of Morocco, and Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Secretary General of the Arab League.
The ministers sought ways to urge the international community to exercise its full role and shoulder its responsibilities for terminating Israel’s operations, violence and brutal aggression against Gaza Strip, leaving thousands of civilians dead or injured.
They also stressed the need to extend immediate humanitarian assistance to the population in Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that he believed the bloc's leaders would back a call for a "humanitarian pause" to allow aid to enter Gaza.
European Union leaders are set to discuss the issue at a summit on Thursday after rifts emerged within the bloc over how to respond to the conflict.
"I believe that the idea of a humanitarian pause to facilitate the arrival of humanitarian aid, which would allow displaced persons to find shelter, is something that the leaders will support," Borrell said after talks with EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
Borrell said a pause would be a less ambitious objective than the "humanitarian ceasefire" called for by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Despite Borrell's assessment, a European official warned there was not yet a clear agreement among the 27 EU nations on issuing a call for a pause in the fighting.
"We cannot say that there is clearly a consensus that has emerged," the official said on condition of anonymity.
"The degree of suffering -- innocent civilians in Gaza are suffering -- it's not acceptable at all and in our view that's why we believe a humanitarian pause is required to at a minimum get aid and supplies in," Ireland's Foreign Minister Micheal Martin said before the meeting. SEE P6 & 7
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