Saudi Arabia urges international community to push Israel for Gaza ceasefire

BEIJING, China

The international community needs to shoulder responsibility to stop Israel’s violations in Gaza, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said on Monday during a meeting between China’s foreign minister and ministers from Arab and Islamic countries.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud attends meeting with Chinese, Jordanian, Egyptian, Indonesian, Palestinian and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) delegations in Beijing.

The Saudi foreign minister and his counterparts from Arab and Islamic nations arrived in Beijing on Monday on the first leg of a tour to the permanent member states of the United Nations’ Security Council to push for an immediate ceasefire and to allow humanitarian aid into the territory.

During a meeting with diplomats in Beijing, Prince Faisal called for more international efforts to end the war on Gaza and save lives.

“We are here to send a clear signal: that is we must immediately stop the fighting and the killings, we must immediately deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza,” said the foreign minister.

“We aspire to cooperate with China and other countries that understand the seriousness of the situation to end the war,” Prince Faisal added.

He pointed to the dangerous escalations in Gaza that require effective international action to end the violence, which has so far killed about 12,000 people.

China’s foreign minister Wang Yi said Beijing is willing to work to help “restore peace in the Middle East.”

“Let us work together to quickly cool down the situation in Gaza and restore peace in the Middle East as soon as possible,” Wang told foreign ministers in opening remarks in Beijing.

He noted that Beijing was a “good friend and brother of Arab and Muslim countries,” adding it has “always firmly supported the just cause of the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate national rights and interests.”

He called on the international community to take urgent action to stop the “humanitarian disaster” unfolding in Gaza and prevent this tragedy from spreading.

“The situation in Gaza affects all countries around the world, questioning the human sense of right and wrong and humanity's bottom line,” he said.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with his counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia in Beijing. 

Beijing has deepened alliances with non-Western led multilateral groups such as the BRICS bloc of nations while strengthening ties with countries in the Middle East and the Global South.

On Monday, Wang added China will work to “quell the fighting in Gaza as soon as possible, alleviate the humanitarian crisis and promote an early, comprehensive, just and lasting settlement of the Palestinian issue.”

The officials holding meetings with China’s Yi on Monday are from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia, Palestine and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, among others.