Cairo talks hear calls for peace for Palestinians
Arab leaders condemned Israel's two-week-old bombardment of Gaza on Saturday and demanded renewed efforts to reach a Middle East peace settlement to end a decades-long cycle of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Speaking at a hastily convened gathering dubbed the Cairo Peace Summit, Jordan's King Abdullah denounced what he termed global silence about Israel's attacks on the enclave and urged an even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. "The message the Arab world is hearing is that Palestinian lives matter less than Israeli ones," he said, adding he was outraged and grieved by acts of violence waged against innocent civilians in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel. "The Israeli leadership must realise once and for all that a state can never thrive if it is built on a foundation of injustice ... Our message to the Israelis should be that we want a future of peace and security for you and the Palestinians." Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Palestinians would not be displaced or driven off their land. "We won't leave, we won't leave," he told the summit. Israel has vowed to wipe the Gaza-based Hamas militant group "off the face of the earth" over an assault on southern Israel that killed 1,400 people on October 7, the deadliest Palestinian militant attack in Israeli history. It has said it told Palestinians to move south within Gaza for their own safety. The Cairo gathering is trying to find ways to head off a wider regional war, although the assembled Middle Eastern and European leaders are expected to struggle to agree a common position on the conflict between Israel and Hamas militants. Three diplomats said it was unlikely there would be a joint statement from the gathering because of sensitivities around any calls for a ceasefire, and whether to include mention of Hamas's attack and Israel's right to defend itself. The absence of a top official from Israel's main ally the United States and some other major Western leaders has cooled expectations for what the hastily-convened event can achieve. (Reuters)