Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan says ministers from Arab and Muslim countries are slated to visit China on Monday and hold an international meeting aimed at ending the US-backed Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip.
Farhan announced in a post on his X social media account on Sunday that the meeting would be the first step for the Islamic Ministerial Committee to carry out decisions reached at the Arab-Islamic Summit held in Riyadh earlier in the month, among which was working towards the implementation of an urgent ceasefire in Gaza.
Farhan said the ministers would embark on a tour and visit several other capitals after China to convey a strong message of achieving an immediate ceasefire and facilitating the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
سمو وزير الخارجية الأمير #فيصل_بن_فرحان @FaisalbinFarhan : الأولوية الآن إنهاء القتال.. ومعاناة سكان غزة يجب أن تتوقف pic.twitter.com/PLv6oFGCag
— وزارة الخارجية 🇸🇦 (@KSAMOFA) November 18, 2023
The top Saudi diplomat has a day earlier discussed latest developments in Gaza and Israel’s genocidal war in the besieged area with EU Foreign Affairs High Representative Josep Borrell.
Speaking to reporters after the confabulation, Farhan said despite the agreement within the international community on the importance of peace, there is still not enough attention given to the need of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
“We hope at some point we can relaunch efforts towards permanent peace with the establishment of a Palestinian state that will ensure the security for all of us in the region, but the priority now is ending the fighting,” Farhan said.
“We must work together to ensure that we end this fighting and civilian suffering we are seeing every day in Gaza.”
Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance groups of Hamas and Islamic Jihad carried out the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm into the occupied territories in response to the occupying regime’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people.
According to the Gaza-based health ministry, at least 12,300 Palestinians have been killed in the strikes, most of them women and children. Nearly 30,000 Palestinians have also been injured.
Tel Aviv has also imposed a “complete siege” on Gaza, cutting off fuel, electricity, food and water to more than two million Palestinians living there.