Middle East nations confront growing chaos in their region

geneva: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Oman — all nations in the thick of the unrest that has pervaded the Middle East — confronted the crisis in the region 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 they 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 — facing protesters, critics and growing global isolation over his Gaza policies — told the General Assembly his country “must finish the job” against Hamas for its October 7, 2023, surprise attack in southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people. Hamas also took 250 hostages. .

Egypt’s foreign minister Badr Abdelatty, whose country has been a key mediator in Gaza along with the United States and Qatar, sharply criticised 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 defenceless civilians for a sin they did not commit” is “transpiring without accountability, and it has affected one country after another,” he said.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, whose country hosts Russia-Ukraine-US peace talks, 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. agencies