Arab Leaders Press for Ceasefire, Hamas Calls for ‘Practical Steps’

Date: 17 May 2025 - 22:24

News ID: ۱۳۹۶۳۷

BAGHDAD (Dispatches) –
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Saturday called for increased pressure “to halt the massacre in Gaza,” speaking at an Arab League summit hours after the Zionist regime announced an intensified operation in the besieged Palestinian territory.
UN chief Antonio Guterres told the Baghdad meeting that “we need a permanent ceasefire, now,” while Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi urged his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump to “apply all necessary efforts... for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.”
The summit comes straight after a Persian Gulf tour by Trump, who sparked uproar earlier this year by declaring that the United States could take over Gaza and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
The scheme that included the proposed displacement of Palestinians prompted Arab leaders to come up with an alternative plan to rebuild the territory at a March summit in Cairo.
Guterres said that “we reject the repeated displacement of the Gaza population, along with any question of forced displacement outside of Gaza.”
Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani told the summit that his country backs the creation of an “Arab fund to support reconstruction efforts” after crises in the region.
He pledged $20 million to the reconstruction of Gaza and a similar amount for Lebanon.
Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said the Baghdad meeting would endorse previous Arab League decisions on Gaza’s reconstruction countering Trump’s widely condemned proposal.
The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas called on Arab leaders to take urgent and practical steps to end the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip and lift the devastating humanitarian blockade on the besieged territory.
Hamas made the appeal in a statement on Saturday, as the 34th Arab League Summit kicked off with the Israeli genocide against Gaza being a primary focus.
“As the 34th Arab Summit convenes today in Baghdad, the Gaza Strip is enduring one of the most horrific and bloody assaults. The occupation continues to commit massacres against civilians, targeting residential neighborhoods and shelter centers, resulting in the martyrdom and injury of hundreds, all under a suffocating siege and a complete halt to aid deliveries,” Hamas said.
It went on to say that northern Gaza in particular is witnessing “a systematic campaign of extermination, with intensified aerial and artillery bombardment forcing hundreds of families into forced displacement from their homes, fleeing death and shelling.”
The Palestinian resistance movement also noted that “what is taking place is a fully-fledged genocide being perpetrated before the eyes of a paralyzed world, as more than 2.5 million people in the besieged Strip are being slaughtered.”
Hamas further urged the Arab League Summit “to assume its historic responsibilities and take concrete steps to stop the aggression, lift the siege, and implement the resolutions of the Riyadh Summit, which called for breaking the blockade and ensuring the entry of humanitarian aid.”
It also called for imposing sanctions on the “fascist” Israeli regime and the prosecution of its leaders as war criminal.