Baerbock calls for more humanitarian ceasefires for Gaza aid
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German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock urgently called for new humanitarian ceasefires to supply the suffering Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip with aid, as well as calling for the release of the 130 or so hostages still held by Hamas.
What is needed is a much less intensive, more targeted anti-terrorist operation by the Israeli army, she said during a visit to Cairo on Tuesday at a meeting with her Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukri.
"And we need more humanitarian pauses so that significantly more aid can be distributed to the people," the minister added.
Egypt's Foreign Ministry described the efforts to achieve a renewed ceasefire and adequate aid deliveries for the Palestinians as unavoidable.
"The calls for the legitimate rights of the Palestinians have been around for three decades," said Shoukri. "Just a literal call for a two-state solution will not achieve this goal."
The current situation in the Gaza war is developing in the direction of an expulsion of the Palestinians, Shoukri added. The 2 million people in the sealed-off coastal strip are under siege.
He added that there can be cooperation between Cairo and Berlin to achieve a two-state solution to the conflict and establish appropriate frameworks to achieve stability and peace in the region.
After the meeting in Cairo, Baerbock handed over almost 10 tons of relief supplies for the suffering Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip to the Egyptian Red Crescent.
The minister landed from Cairo in an A400M air force transporter in al-Arish, capital of the Egyptian governorate of North Sinai on the Mediterranean, on Tuesday.
She then planned to visit the border town of Rafah, located around 50 kilometres to the west between Egypt and 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.
Meanwhile, German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck sees a special role for Berlin in dealing with the Gaza war in view of its close relations with Israel.
"Precisely because the Israeli public knows that Germany, that the Federal Government, has made a special promise of protection for Israel, which cannot be relativized, we can also find clear words," Habeck said on Tuesday during a visit to Muscat, the capital of the Gulf state of Oman.
In this context, he also referred to the current trips through the region by Baerbock and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
"Of course, we also talk to each other clearly out of solidarity," said Habeck.
They insisted, for example, that humanitarian and medical care for the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip should be guaranteed and that there should be no famine. "Israel must do this."
