Jordan FM says Israel ‘killing all prospects’ for regional peace

MOSCOW (AFP): Jordan’s foreign minister said Wednesday that Israel’s assault on Gaza had caused “massacres and starvation” and that its wider actions were “killing all prospects” for peace in the Middle East.

His comments came after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz approved a plan to conquer Gaza City, an urban area home to hundreds of thousands of people in the north of the Palestinian territory.

Most of the territory’s population has been displaced since the war began, many repeatedly, according to the United Nations.

Addressing Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov at a meeting in Moscow, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said he hoped to discuss “efforts to end the aggression on Gaza, and the massacres and starvation that it is creating.”

This was in addition to the “illegal measures that continue to undermine the two-state solution and kill all prospects for peace in the region,” he added.

“We value your clear position against the war and your demand for reaching a permanent ceasefire,” he told Lavrov.

Israel denies its military targets civilians and says that there is no “policy of starvation” in Gaza.

The Israeli government’s plans to expand the war have triggered a wave of international condemnation as well as domestic protests.

Israel’s offensive has killed at least 62,064 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Gaza, which the United Nations considers reliable.