Ankara, Cairo (Al-Ittihad)
Yesterday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry in Istanbul, during his current visit to Turkey, where the two sides warned against any military operation in the Palestinian city of Rafah, and stressed the necessity of an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. .
The official spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Ahmed Abu Zeid, revealed that Shoukry explained during the meeting with Erdogan that this visit comes within the framework of preparation for the visit of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to Turkey, in response to the Turkish President’s invitation to hold the first meeting of the high-level strategic council between the two countries. .
Shoukry also stressed the importance that Egypt attaches to enhancing the volume of trade exchange between the two countries, which reached nearly 7 billion dollars in 2023, expressing the Egyptian side’s aspiration to reach the volume of mutual trade to 15 billion dollars during the next few years, as well as interest in working to continue enhancing Turkish investments in Egypt.
The official spokesman stated that the two sides exchanged views on a number of regional and international files, the most prominent of which was the raging crisis taking place in the Gaza Strip, and the associated serious humanitarian repercussions faced by the Palestinian brothers in the Strip, while emphasizing the necessity of reaching an immediate and permanent ceasefire. And allow humanitarian aid to enter without any obstacles.
The two sides reiterated their warning against undertaking any military operation in the Palestinian Rafah, as such a step would have extremely dangerous consequences, in addition to the importance of continuing continuous coordination and joint work between Cairo and Ankara to prevent the expansion of the conflict in the region.
Yesterday, nine members of one family, including six children, were killed in an Israeli strike on their home in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
More than 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are currently crowded in Rafah, according to the United Nations, and they live in very poor conditions, suffering from a lack of water, food, medicine, and housing.
One million of these displaced people live in tents or near shelters set up by non-governmental organizations.
Rafah, located on the Egyptian border, had 250,000 people before the outbreak of the Israeli war on Gaza on October 7.
Shortly after the outbreak of the war, Israel informed the Palestinians residing in northern Gaza that they must move to “safe areas” in the southern Gaza Strip, such as Rafah, but the bombing did not stop throughout the Gaza Strip.
The city of Rafah is often subjected to Israeli strikes. The Gaza Civil Defense spokesman reported that Israeli aircraft targeted a residential apartment, killing 9 people, including 6 children.
Al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah announced that the dead were five children, aged between one and seven years, a 16-year-old girl, two women, and a man.
In front of the hospital, an Agence France-Presse correspondent reported seeing people surrounding small body bags, crying, while the roar of planes was heard flying in the air.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatens a military operation in the city of Rafah, where more than half of the population of the Strip is currently crowded, most of whom are displaced people who fled battles in other parts of it.
Netanyahu stresses that the goals of the war in Gaza cannot be achieved without invading Rafah. Non-governmental organizations and a growing number of countries oppose this operation, fearing that it will lead to the death of large numbers of civilians.
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