CAIRO: Arab Parliament Speaker Adel Abdulrahman Al-Asoumi has condemned what he described as a “shameful” international silence on “daily crimes” committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Addressing the 147th Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly being hosted by Angola in its capital city, Luanda, Al-Asoumi labeled the global response to Israel’s military actions in Gaza “a disgrace.”
He warned that the international community’s neglect of the “massacres which the Palestinian people are exposed to, and the blind support of some countries for those horrors will lead to the destruction of the entire region.”
In a speech distributed on Thursday, Al-Asoumi said the people of Palestine “have suffered, and are still suffering, for more than 75 years from all forms of injustices, persecution, killings, arrests, and abuse in order to obtain their most basic right to establish their independent state.”
Palestinians are being subjected to the “ugliest forms of crimes against humanity, genocide, and forced displacement at the hands of the brutal occupying force,” he said.
Addressing the international community, human rights organizations, and countries that support the Israeli military action, he said: “Your silence is not neutrality, but rather participation in these crimes, and it is a shame on you; history will record that and hold you accountable.
“Instead of making efforts to calm the situation, the major countries are sending more weapons to kill Palestinian women and children.”
This has revealed their “true faces,” Al-Asoumi said.
He called on the Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly to issue an urgent appeal for an immediate ceasefire and the lifting of the “unjust siege” of the Gaza Strip.
Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar, Egypt’s health minister, discussed relief efforts for Gaza with Okay Memiş, president of Turkiye’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority; Salih Mutlu Sen, Turkish ambassador to Egypt; and Fatma Yilmaz, Turkish Red Crescent president.
Abdel-Ghaffar said that Egypt and Turkiye share the same outlook on the Gaza crisis.
Egypt’s Ministry of Health has developed an emergency plan to deal with the repercussions of the violence in the Gaza Strip, he added.