Spain to send more humanitarian aid to Egypt for displaced Palestinians

OVIEDO, Spain

During a visit to Egypt on Friday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced that Madrid would send around four tons of humanitarian aid to Egypt to help displaced Palestinians in Gaza.

Sanchez, alongside his Belgian counterpart Alexander De Croo, met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi the day after traveling to Egypt and Palestine.

After their meeting, El-Sisi said in a news conference that Egypt is delivering most of the humanitarian aid to Palestinians and that the international community must offer more aid to the struggling population.

“We will not close Rafah,” he insisted, referring to the sole entry to the besieged Gaza Strip.

De Croo also called on Israel to open more entrances to Gaza “because innocent civilians are suffering and they need help.”

The three leaders said they welcomed the humanitarian pause in Gaza which started Friday morning and urged Israel to make it permanent.

They also discussed what long-term peace could look like in Israel and Palestine, as much of Sanchez’s visit is focusing on establishing momentum for an international peace conference leading to a two-state solution.

The Egyptian leader reminded his European counterparts that peace talks have been failing for the past 30 years, so “we need to be realistic.”

He suggested that the international community needs to take the reins.

“We need international recognition of the Palestinian state, and the UN needs to intervene. Going in this direction would reflect the seriousness of the international community to achieve peace in our region,” he said, explaining his idea for a demilitarized Palestinian state with the borders of 1967, potentially with the presence of international forces.

El-Sisi also detailed how the leaders spoke about the establishment of safe zones across the Gaza Strip. “As many as 50,000 homes were destroyed and 100,000 were damaged,” he said, adding that US President Joe Biden even backed his position on the need to avoid the forced displacement of Palestinians.

Later on Friday, Sanchez and De Croo will travel to the Rafah border crossing to see the situation with their own eyes.

On Thursday, Sanchez called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to protect the civilian population and put an end to the killing of thousands of innocent women and children in Gaza.

El-Sisi thanked the Spanish and Belgian leaders for their “positive” positions on Gaza.

Spain currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council. In January, that position will be handed over to Belgium.