The Cairo Peace Summit ended without a joint communiqué yesterday because of the sharp divide between the Arab leaders, who called for a ceasefire and immediate relief of Palestinian civilians, and the Europeans, who focused on Israel’s supposed right to self-defense and condemnation of Hamas, reported Al Ahram daily. In TV remarks, Egyptian Presidential spokesman Ahmed Fahmy said the summit has achieved its goal in “increasing areas of understanding” among the participating countries.
Fahmy said that the countries attending the summit expressed similar views on various topics, including the need to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. They disagreed, however, on “the level of condemnations” and the call for ceasefire, he remarked. “Some [leaders] want to condemn only one party and one action on a particular day as if the narrative started on that day,” Fahmy said.
Unlike Egypt and many other countries that call for immediate ceasefire and de-escalation, some other countries advocated for the Israeli right to self-defense, he added. Leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Greece, Cyprus as well as the European Council have condemned the Hamas Oct. 7 attack as “terrorist” during their participation in the summit.
Meanwhile, they viewed the Israeli strikes that have killed more than 4,000 civilians, more than half of them children, in the context of Israel’s right to defend itself as per international law. During the summit, the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Palestine rejected targeting civilians and called for the cessation of the military operations in Gaza.
