Riyadh reaffirms support for two-state solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict

February 21, 2017

Jeddah, Feb 21: Saudia Arabia has reasserted support for a Palestinian state after US President Donald Trump said Middle East peace does not depend on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

riyadh

Speaking on Monday after talks with his Italian counterpart, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said: “You have a peace deal which essentially calls for a settlement based on two states living side by side in peace and security.”

He added: “(A) Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and the just settlement of refugees and just sharing water resources. This is the settlement that we believe is a fair and just settlement.”

Trump said last week he could accept a two-state solution or a single-state arrangement if it is agreed upon by all sides. Administration officials later said the US absolutely supports a two-state solution.

Following talks with his Italian counterpart Angelino Alfano, Al-Jubeir pointed to the long history of Saudi-Italian relations.

Both discussed challenges to the Middle East peace process, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Libya, in addition to the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 and the role Italy may play in this regard.

Meanwhile, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, hosting a visit by his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, said his country believes in a “two-state solution.” Lee explained his stand at a joint news briefing with Netanyahu, who does not endorse the two-state approach. Lee said he realizes a two-state solution is difficult to achieve, but said it is the only way to achieve peace.

“We have consistently believed that a two-state solution between Israel and Palestine, however hard to achieve, is the only way to bring peace and security to both peoples,” Lee said.

Netanyahu did not mention tensions in the Middle East in his remarks at the news briefing, after which questions were not allowed.

But afterward, at a state dinner, he said he believes there is an opportunity to seek peace now “because I sense a great change in the Arab world, in many Arab countries, and I hope ... to be able to use that newfound attitude toward Israel to help us solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as well.”

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News Network
November 10,2024

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The media office in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime has been waging a genocidal war since last October, says as many as 188 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the onset of the brutal military onslaught.

The office provided the figure on Saturday, naming four journalists as the most recent victims of the onslaught.

It identified the foursome as Zahraa Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Ahmad Mohammad Abu Sukheil, Mustafa Khadr Bahar, and Abdel Rahman Khadr Bahar.

The office said it “strongly condemns the targeting, killing, and assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli occupation and holds it fully responsible for committing this heinous crime.”

“We call on the international community, international organizations, and those involved in journalistic work worldwide to take action against the occupation, pursue it in international courts for its ongoing crimes, and pressure it to halt the genocide and the targeted killings of Palestinian journalists,” it said.

Earlier in the day, the office said the Israeli regime had bombed the tents sheltering journalists and displaced persons at the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza for the ninth consecutive time.

The atrocity that claimed the lives of two people and injured 26 others came as part of “the genocidal crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army against hospitals, civilians, and displaced persons,” it said.

The media office held the regime and the United States, its biggest ally, as well as other countries aiding the genocide fully responsible for such systematic crimes.

At least 43,552 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed and 102,765 others wounded since the launch of the war that followed a retaliatory operation by Gaza’s resistance groups.

The fatalities include 44 people, who were killed across the coastal sliver, in the most recent phase of the military onslaught.

As many as 24 of the victims were killed in the northern part of the territory, where the regime has markedly intensified its deadly attacks for weeks.

They included an eight-year-old child and a five-year-old one, who lost their lives after Israeli warplanes targeted a group of minors filling up jerry cans with water alongside their mother at the Jabalia Refugee camp.

Gaza’s heath ministry, meanwhile, said a number of victims remained under the rubble and in the streets following Israeli airstrikes, saying ambulances and civil defense teams could not reach them due to the sheer extent of the destruction caused by the raids and obstruction caused by the regime.

Also on Saturday, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, a United Nations-backed assessment, warned that famine was looming in northern Gaza amid escalated Israeli aggression and the regime’s near-total siege of the targeted areas.

The alert from the Famine Review Committee warned of "an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine occurring, due to the rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip."

On October 17, the body projected that the number of people in Gaza facing "catastrophic" food insecurity between November and April 2025 would reach 345,000, or 16 percent of the population.

The IPC report classified that figure as Phase 5 -- a situation when "starvation, death, destitution, and extremely critical acute malnutrition levels are evident."

The Israeli military, however, questioned the report's credibility.

"To date, all assessments by the IPC have proven incorrect and inconsistent with the situation on the ground," the army said in a statement, denouncing "partial, biased data and superficial sources with vested interests."

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