Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in the Egyptian capital on Sunday to discuss ceasefire efforts in Gaza, local media reported.
Abbas arrived in Cairo at the invitation of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi.
During their meeting, it is expected that “the work carried out for an immediate and permanent cessation of the genocidal war waged by Israel against the Palestinians” will be discussed, it said.
The two leaders will discuss Egyptian, Arab, regional and international efforts to overcome the humanitarian catastrophe taking place in the Gaza Strip.
Also on the agenda will be discussions on preventing attempts to resettle the Palestinian people and halting attacks by Israeli troops and radical Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
The situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate by the day. At al-Aqsa Hospital, the last functioning hospital in central Gaza, a World Health Organization team on Sunday witnessed what it said were “sickening scenes,” with patients being treated on blood-streaked floors, according to a social media post from WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Sean Casey, the WHO emergency medical teams coordinator in Gaza, said in a video from the hospital:
They’re treating children on the floor. … The floor is actually covered in blood. There are patients coming in every few minutes.
Israel launched air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border incursion by Palestinian resistance group Hamas on 7 October last year, killing at least 22,800 Palestinians and injuring more than 58,400.
Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack, with 240 taken hostage.
The Israeli offensive has reduced Gaza to rubble, with 60 per cent of the enclave’s infrastructure damaged or destroyed and some 2 million residents displaced from their homes. Israel has declared a total siege of the region resulting in severe shortages of food, clean water and medicine.
