Arab leaders condemn Israel, with one referring to the Gaza siege as a “war crime”

At a conference on Saturday, Egypt and Jordan vehemently denounced Israel for its conduct in Gaza, a warning that the two Western allies who made peace with Israel decades ago are growing impatient with its two-week-old war against Hamas.

The summit’s host country, Egypt, represented by President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, once more rejected any notion of relocating Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians to the Sinai Peninsula and issued a strong warning against the “liquidation of the Palestinian cause.” King Abdullah II of Jordan referred to Israel’s occupation and shelling of Gaza as “a war crime.”

Even among those with strong links to Israel, who have frequently served as mediators, the comments indicated growing resentment in the region as the conflict started by a major Hamas offensive entered a third week with increasing losses and no end in sight.

Egypt is particularly worried about a large-scale flow of Palestinians entering its territory, which it worries would, among other things, seriously weaken ambitions for a Palestinian state. Israeli demands for Palestinian civilians to flee to the south, towards Egypt, as well as hazy comments made by some Israeli politicians and military personnel have frightened Israel’s neighbours.

El-Sissi declared in his opening remarks that Egypt fiercely opposed “the forced displacement of the Palestinians and their transfer to Egyptian lands in Sinai.”

“I want to state it clearly and unequivocally to the world that the liquidation of the Palestinian cause without a just solution is beyond the realm of possibility, and in any case, it will never happen at the expense of Egypt, absolutely not,” he stated.

The similar message was sent by the monarch of Jordan, who stated his “unequivocal rejection” of any Palestinian displacement. The majority of Palestinian refugees from earlier Mideast wars are currently living in Jordan.

“This is a war crime according to international law, and a red line for all of us,” he said at the meeting.

Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, a semi-autonomous government operating in the occupied West Bank, demanded that Israel cease “its barbaric aggression” in Gaza. He also forbade efforts to drive Palestinians from the coastal region.

“We will not leave, we will not leave, we will not leave, and we will remain in our land,” he stated to the gathering.

Israel claims it is committed to overthrowing Hamas in Gaza, but nothing is known about its long-term objectives.

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Israel’s three-step strategy

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant unveiled a three-stage strategy on Friday, aiming to eliminate Hamas through airstrikes and “maneuvering”—a term that is likely code for a ground assault. This would be followed by a period of lower-intensity mop-up operations. A new “security regime” would then be established in Gaza, coupled with “the removal of Israel’s responsibility for life in the Gaza Strip,” Gallant claimed.

Who would lead Gaza after Hamas, he would not say.

In the meantime, Israel has mandated that more than half of the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza leave the region from north to south, thereby driving hundreds of thousands of Palestinians towards the Egyptian border.

Israel’s uncertainty on the subject, according to former Israeli defence officer Amos Gilad, is jeopardising critical ties with Egypt.

“I think a peace treaty with Egypt is highly important, highly crucial for the national security of Israel and Egypt and the whole structure of peace in the world,” he stated.

Gilad argued that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to publicly declare that Palestinians will not be allowed entry into Egypt and Jordan while also having direct conversations with those leaders.

According to two senior Egyptian officials, tensions with Israel are at an all-time high.

They claimed Egypt complained to the United States, which mediated the Camp David Accords in the 1970s, regarding Israeli remarks concerning relocation. Since neither official had permission to brief the media, they both agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity.

Egypt is concerned that a large-scale evacuation could risk luring militants into the Sinai, from where they could threaten the peace agreement by attacking Israel.

Arab nations also fear a recurrence of the 700,000 or more Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel before and during the 1948 war that preceded its foundation; this event is known to Palestinians as the Nakba, or catastrophe. These refugees were never allowed to return, and today there are approximately 6 million of their descendants.

It is a crime of war.

The fury at the meeting on Saturday went beyond worries about mass eviction.

Both presidents denounced Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza, which have resulted in the deaths of more than 4,300 Palestinians, many of them civilians, according to health officials there. According to Israel, it is simply targeting Hamas and according to international law.

On October 7, a massive Hamas assault into southern Israel that left more than 1,400 Israelis dead, the vast majority of them civilians, served as the catalyst for the start of the conflict.

One of the closest allies of the West in the area, Abdullah, condemned Israel of “collective punishment of a besieged and helpless people.”

“International humanitarian law has been flagrantly violated. It is a crime of war, he declared.

The international community, he continued, has ignored the suffering of the Palestinian people, sending the Arab world a “loud and clear message” that “Palestinian lives matter less than Israeli ones.”

VOA