Egypt offers to host multilateral meeting on Palestinian issue

Cairo: Egypt offered to host a multilateral meeting to address the latest situation and the future of the Palestinian issue, the Egyptian Presidency said in a statement.

The invitation was made after Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi held a National Security Council meeting to review regional developments, notably with regard to the military escalation in the Gaza Strip, Xinhua news agency reported.

Egypt is ready to exert any effort to achieve calm in Gaza and activate a genuine peace process, the presidency said on Sunday in a statement.

“There is no solution to the Palestinian cause except through the two-state solution,” the statement said, stressing that Egypt rejected the displacement of the people of Gaza or “attempts to pay off the Palestinian issue at the expense of neighbouring countries”.

It is stressed at the meeting that national security is a red line and that there is no compromise in its protection, it added.

Egypt will continue contact with international and regional partners “to reduce the escalation and stop the targeting of civilians,” according to the statement.

While Egypt is facing difficulties in delivering humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian enclave, it will “intensify contacts with international and regional relief organisations in order to deliver the necessary assistance,” the statement noted.

Since Thursday, the El Arish airport in Egypt’s North Sinai has received planes carrying aid supplies for the Gaza Strip from Jordan, the UAE, Turkey, Tunisia and the WHO, according to Egyptian officials and the Red Crescent.

Egypt said it has kept its side of the Rafah crossing, the only crossing point between Egypt and Gaza, open for aid delivery since the conflict broke out between Israel and Gaza-ruling Hamas on October 7.

However, according to Egyptian officials, the Israeli bombardments on the Palestinian side of the border halted the crossing’s operation.

Engaged in a US-sponsored peace treaty with neighbouring Israel since 1979, Egypt has for years been a peace mediator in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

–IANS