Why did Jordan call for an international emergency response conference for Gaza?

Since ascending to the throne of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan twenty-five years ago, His Majesty King Abdullah has continued the approach of his father, the late King Hussein, dedicating his efforts and meetings on bilateral, regional, and international levels, warning against the international community's neglect of the inevitable need for a just and peaceful solution that guarantees the Palestinian people their legitimate right to establish an independent state on their national soil occupied by Israel since 1967.

Despite Jordan's warnings about the magnitude of the tragedy experienced by the Palestinian people due to the occupation's practices of blockade, settlement activity expansion, killing, destruction, and violation of Palestinians’ simplest rights to a free life like other peoples on the planet, global powers have not given these repeated warnings the attention they deserve.

The absence of decisive stance by global powers has granted the far-right government in Israel more opportunities to challenge international law and all universally recognized religious, moral and human values, leading to further humiliation of the people under its occupation, expansion of its settlement projects, and increased efforts to Judaize Palestinian land and desecrate Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem and across Palestine. Israel has further intensified its oppression of a people who only seek their legitimate right to what remains of their ancestral land.

Meanwhile, the Gaza Strip has been enduring a harsh life, lacking the simplest necessities of decent living due to an Israeli blockade nearing its 18th year. This has led to the realization of what King Abdullah has warned about for 25 years, as life has become unbearably difficult for over two million people living in Gaza, barely surviving.

The Israeli government has never considered the severe suffering faced by Palestinian people and, instead, has launched its genocidal war now entering its ninth month, killing and destruction of humans, trees, stones, and everything necessary for human life in Gaza, in an effort to displace its residents, as it did in the 1948 war.

Under King Abdullah’s leadership, Jordan has made tremendous efforts to stop the massacre, now acknowledged by the world, as it sees headless children, grieving women who lost their families, and patients and injured unable to find medicine. More heartbreakingly, children are dying from starvation, a new weapon introduced by Israel in its war.

As the world stands helpless to stop the gruesome massacre, and unable to compel Israel to adhere to international law, the UN Charter, and human rights principles, Jordan, a country of humanity providing a dignified life from its limited resources to millions of refugees finds itself morally compelled to act, hoping to awaken the human conscience to rescue and aid the people of Gaza.

Yes, when the Israeli government describes the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees as a terrorist organisation for merely attempting to help the plagued people, and when its ministers describe the people of Gaza as “human animals” that should be killed, and when it closes all crossings to Gaza and settlers attack Jordanian aid convoys for Gaza, Jordan cannot remain silent.

The emergency response conference hosted by Jordan can evoke sympathy with the people facing extermination and awaken the global human conscience from its slumber.