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Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday met with Prime Minister of Egypt Mostafa Madbouly in Beijing and expressed hope to work with his country to bring “more stability” to the Middle East, Chinese media reported, as the Israel-Hamas war cast a shadow over the region.
“China is willing to enhance cooperation with Egypt… and inject more certainty and stability into the region and the world,” Xi told Mostafa Madbouli at a meeting in Beijing, CCTV reported.
“China and Egypt are good friends who share the same goals and trust each other, and good partners who work hand-in-hand for development and common prosperity.
“At present, the international and regional situation is undergoing profound and complex changes, and the world is experiencing rapid changes not seen for a century,” Xi added.
Additionally, Beijing was willing to work with Cairo to “jointly safeguard international fairness and justice as well as the common interests of developing countries”, he said.
Egypt announced its willingness to permit the “sustainable” passage of humanitarian aid through the Rafah crossing on Thursday, despite the increasing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip due to massive Israel bombing.
Relations between China and Egypt have strengthened in recent months, with Cairo set to become an official member of the BRICS group of emerging economies next year.
“China congratulates Egypt on joining the BRICS cooperation mechanism and believes that this will inject new impetus into BRICS cooperation,” Xi told Madbouli.
Moreover, continuing the conveyor of Western leaders who have visited Israel in the wake of the Hamas attacks, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has reached Israel today (Thursday) to seek de-escalation of the conflict, his office said.
Sunak will then travel on to Middle Eastern capitals as part of his diplomatic efforts.
Biden’s $10 billion aid for Israel
After meeting Israeli leaders in Tel Aviv, US President Joe Biden on Wednesday, unveiled a $100 million deal to allow desperately needed humanitarian aid to enter worn-torn Gaza, where one million people have fled their homes amid withering Israeli air strikes.
Meanwhile, he also announced plans for “unprecedented” aid for Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, as part of a wider $100 billion package that includes support for Ukraine.
Biden plans to give $10 billion aid from the massive aid deal to Israel despite global protests amid anger over Tuesday’s attack on Gaza’s Al-Ahli Hospital in which 500 Palestinians were martyred.
After face-to-face talks in Israel and intense telephone diplomacy with Egypt, Biden said a limited number of trucks would be allowed to cross the shuttered Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza from Friday, AFP reported.
It would be the first international relief to enter Gaza since October 7, when Hamas launched shock raids into Israel, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and seizing about 200 hostages.
Since then, Israel has besieged the Palestinian enclave, launching wave after wave of air strikes, enforcing a blockade and deploying tens of thousands of troops to the border
The United Nations (UN) and humanitarian groups have begged for the military stranglehold on Gaza to be eased, to allow supplies of water, food, fuel and medicines to enter.
Top UN humanitarian official Martin Griffiths on Wednesday said the situation in Gaza was dire, with hospitals overwhelmed, more than 3,000 Gazans were martyred and 12,500 injured.
“The pace of death, of suffering, of destruction,” he said “cannot be exaggerated.”
Over 100 trucks have been waiting for days on the Egyptian side of the border to enter Gaza, but have not been allowed to enter Gaza as Israel fears aid deliveries could be used as cover to bring weapons or divert them into the hands of Hamas, the governing enclave. Israel has already launched multiple air strikes at the border crossing.
Aid talks
Meanwhile, Egypt controls the border and fears throwing open the gates would bring tens of thousands of refugees to its territory.
After what he described as a “blunt” telephone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Biden indicated that about 20 trucks would enter Gaza to start with, with more to come if all sides agree.
“We want to get as many of the trucks out as possible,” Biden said aboard Air Force One. “If Hamas confiscates it or doesn’t let it get through… then it’s going to end because we’re not going to be sending any humanitarian aid to Hamas.”
Israeli officials said the deliveries would be limited to “food, water and medicine”, and that the effort was conditional on aid not being used by Hamas.
The UN’s Griffiths estimated that about 100 trucks per day were needed to meet the needs in Gaza.
Biden on Wednesday delivered full US backing for Israel in person, on a solidarity visit in which he blamed the Islamic Jihad Group in Gaza for the deadly rocket strike on the hospital and announced the resumption of urgent aid to the besieged Palestinian enclave.
The US president’s whistlestop trip came just hours after Tuesday night’s attack at the Ahli Arab hospital in the Gaza Strip, sparking fury in Arab countries which blame Israel and protests in Muslim countries from Egypt to Pakistan.
‘Bloodshed must stop’
The horror of the hospital deaths overshadowed Biden’s high-stakes regional visit, with Jordan cancelling a summit between King Abdullah II, Biden, Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Israel’s military campaign to destroy Hamas, which is holding 199 hostages in the besieged territory, has now claimed the lives of 3,478 people, according to health officials, a vast majority including civilians and children.
Arab countries have almost universally blamed Israel for the hospital strike, either directly or through media — including Egypt, Jordan and the UAE, which are among the region’s few countries which have diplomatic relations with Israel.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) —a 57-member bloc of Muslim-majority countries — denounced Israel’s backers for granting the country “impunity” in its war with Gaza.
In the besieged enclave, the hospital explosion brought new horrors after 12 days of sustained bombardment that Israel says targets Hamas and which has destroyed entire city blocks.
More than a million people have been displaced ahead of an anticipated Israeli ground offensive, according to the UN.
According to AFP, overnight, after the explosion, there were scores of bodies cloaked in blood-stained sheets and white plastic lining the floors at the nearby Al-Shifa hospital, where bereaved relatives tried to identify loved ones.
“As I entered the hospital, I heard the explosion. I saw a massive fire,” said Gaza resident Adnan al-Naqa. “The entire square was on fire. There were bodies everywhere, children, women and elderly people.”
“Hospitals are not a target,” said Ghassan Abu Sittah of the charity Doctors Without Borders, who was inside the building when the compound was hit. “This bloodshed must stop. Enough is enough.”
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said hundreds died including “internally displaced people seeking safe shelter”.
Hamas has dismissed Israel’s claim of a misfiring rocket, saying its “outrageous lies do not deceive anyone”. It also slammed the US, accusing it of being complicit in the ongoing strikes on Gaza.
“The continued endorsement of the Zionist narrative by the US administration makes it complicit in the occupation’s massacres and the Baptist hospital massacre in Gaza,” it said.
‘Out of control’
Entire Gaza neighbourhoods have been razed and survivors are left with dwindling supplies of food, water and fuel, unable to flee the 40-kilometre (25-mile) long strip blockaded by Israel and Egypt since 2007.
“The situation in Gaza is spiralling out of control,” World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “We need violence on all sides to stop.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” and warned Israel against “the collective punishment of the Palestinian people”.
But in New York, the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called for a “humanitarian pause”, saying it did not respect Israel’s right to defend itself.
On aid, Biden said he was encouraging Netanyahu to ensure “life-saving capacity to help the Palestinians who are innocent and caught in the middle of this”.
Inside Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians who hold US or other foreign passports have desperately hoped to escape through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, the only way in or out of Gaza not controlled by Israel.
The Rafah crossing has remained closed during the war as Israel has struck the Palestinian side, preventing the delivery of aid piled up in long convoys of trucks waiting in Egypt.
