Mideast nations confront chaos in region ‘at a point of implosion’
UNITED NATIONS—Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Oman confronted the crisis in the Middle East at the annual UN gathering of world leaders, with Egypt’s top diplomat warning that the Mideast “is at a point of implosion.”
All four countries on Saturday decried Israel’s ongoing pursuit of war in Gaza and the horrific impact on Palestinian civilians—and bemoaned the failure of the United Nations and the broader international community to achieve a ceasefire and end the bloodshed.
The four ministers spoke a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the General Assembly his country “must finish the job” against Hamas for its Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people. Hamas also took 250 hostages. Israeli forces recently launched an offensive to take control of Gaza City.
‘Standing idly by’
Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, whose country has been a key mediator in Gaza along with the United States and Qatar, sharply criticized the international community “standing idly by as a spectator” while international law is systematically violated in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Israel’s “wanton, unjust war waged against defenseless civilians for a sin they did not commit” is “transpiring without accountability, and it has affected one country after another,” he said.
Abdelatty accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza—which it vehemently denies—and blocking the Palestinians from establishing an independent state.
He said Israel can’t be secure unless other countries in the region are secure, and “the region cannot see stability without an independent state of Palestine.”
Unprecedented
In the region, he pointed to civil war in Sudan, the need for elections in divided Libya, resolving Yemen’s crisis between the internationally recognized government and Houthi rebels who control the capital and most of the north, and ending repeated Israeli violations of Lebanese and Syrian territory.
Prince Faisal bin Farhan, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, said the suffering of Palestinians and unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Gaza make it imperative for the international community to end the war in Gaza and achieve peace through a two-state solution.
A two-state solution to the nearly 80-year Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “the only path that would guarantee the security of all countries in the region,” he said. “The failure of the international community to take firm actions to end the Israeli aggression and violation will only cause further instability and insecurity regionally and globally” and “will have grave consequences and will escalate war crimes and acts of genocide.”
Farhan said Saudi Arabia, along with Norway and the European Union, launched an international coalition to implement the two-state solution, and it cosponsored Monday’s high-level meeting with France.
