FM, Italian counterpart discuss de-escalation efforts in Gaza

AMMAN — Jordan on Friday stressed the urgent need to halt the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza amid the ongoing escalation and war against the Strip.

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi on Friday, during an Amman-held meeting with Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, stressed that providing humanitarian aid to the elderly, children and women in Gaza is the international community's collective moral and legal responsibility, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra. 

Denying access to food, medicine, fuel and humanitarian aid is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention. International law must be applied universally, with consistent standards irrespective of the victims’ identity or the conflict’s location, Safadi said.

Safadi warned that violence and war does not result in security and peace, instead they lead to destruction, misery and suffering, fuelling conflict, tension and extremism. 

He reiterated that the only way to save the region from further escalation and war, and to achieve security and peace for both Palestinians and Israelis, as well as for the entire region, is a just and comprehensive peace based on a two-state solution.

He stressed the need for immediate and sustained international efforts to stop the escalation and war in Gaza, to protect civilians, to deliver aid and to work towards the resumption of genuine peace negotiations based on a two-state solution, in which an independent sovereign state with its capital East Jerusalem, on the June 4, 1967 lines, would live side-by-side with Israel in peace and security, in accordance with international law and the Arab Peace Initiative.

Every day that passes without halting the escalation and the war, innocent people will pay the price and the whole region will be propelled towards conflict, violence and instability, Safadi said.

Both sides also discussed ways to work together to halt the deterioration.