2023-11-23 14:24:08
Visiting Israel, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez called for new steps towards a peace process.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received the head of the Belgian government Alexander De Croo and his Spanish counterpart Pedro Sanchez this Thursday morning in Jerusalem. A meeting which takes place in a context of intense negotiations to achieve the release of hostages and the ceasefire in Gaza.
Israel can take advantage of this momentum to take additional steps towards a more humanitarian approach, is the message from Mr De Croo and Mr Sanchez. “We support Israel in protecting its citizens,” declared the Belgian Prime Minister. “But this must not become another missed opportunity.”
Accompanied by Mr. Netanyahu, the members of the delegation first watched a film on the consequences of the attack perpetrated by Hamas on October 7. In the ensuing conversation, which Mr De Croo described as “open, but confrontational”, the heads of government spoke of humanitarian de-escalation. But its concrete implementation remains unclear. The Israeli prime minister did not respond to questions following the meeting and there was no joint press conference.
Visit to a kibbutz near Gaza
Belgium initiated the mission and took with it Spain, which will soon hand over the presidency of the Council of the European Union. Both countries belong to the more moderate wing of Europe, which from the start has drawn attention to the humanitarian consequences for the 2.2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where 14,000 people have already died since the Hamas attack and the Israeli response.
Pedro Sanchez took advantage of this visit to plead in favor of a peace conference. This is not the first time that his country has intervened in this sense: Spain had already hosted an important summit on peace in the Middle East in Madrid in 1991.
Meeting with the Palestinian president
The Spanish Prime Minister and Alexander De Croo are visiting a kibbutz near Gaza this Thursday followingnoon, hard hit by the Hamas raid. Later that day, they returned visit to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, the only stopover for the Belgian head of government and his Spanish counterpart, Pedro Sanchez, in the Palestinian Territories.
©BELGIUM
Mahmoud Abbas, member of Fatah, clearly condemned the attacks committed in Israel on October 7 by Hamas, the Islamist organization which controls the Gaza Strip, indicated Alexander De Croo, according to whom this is the first time that the Palestinian leader has expressed himself in such clear terms on this subject. The Prime Minister insisted on the importance of a “strong Palestinian government with leaders who dare to surpass themselves”.
The two European heads of government will then fly in the evening to Cairo where they will meet Egyptian President Abdul Fatah al-Sisi before going to the Rafah border post, a crossing point between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
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