Baerbock calls for more humanitarian ceasefires for Gaza aid
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urgently called during a visit to Cairo on Tuesday for new humanitarian ceasefires to supply the suffering Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip with aid.
What is needed is a much less intensive, more targeted anti-terrorist operation by the Israeli army, she said. "And we need more humanitarian pauses so that significantly more aid can be distributed to the people," she said at a meeting with her Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukri.
Baerbock announced that she would then be travelling to Rafah, the Egyptian border crossing to the southern part of the Gaza Strip. The majority of international aid deliveries to the densely populated coastal strip continue to be channelled via Rafah.
Baerbock had already called on Israel to allow more aid deliveries for the suffering population in Gaza at the beginning of her visit to the Middle East in Jerusalem on Sunday.
"The Israeli army must do more to protect the civilians in Gaza," emphasized Baerbock, who once again spoke out in favour of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians.
"The suffering of so many innocent Palestinians cannot go on like this," she said.
She had a very intensive, very long and confidential discussion with Shoukri about how to achieve new humanitarian pauses "so that people in Israel and Palestine can finally live in peace and security."
Baerbock and her delegation then travelled to Cairo airport to fly to al-Arish on the Mediterranean coast near Rafah in an A400M Bundeswehr transport plane.
