Publish Date: 25 October 2023 - 18:30

TEHRAN, Oct. 25 (MNA) – The international community should exert pressure on Israel to lift its siege on the Gaza Strip and protect civilians, King Abdullah II of Jordan told visiting French President Emmanuel Macron.

"The international community must act immediately to put pressure on the Israeli regime so that it would stop the war, protect civilians, and lift its siege on the Gaza Strip," the Jordan News Agency, or Petra, quoted the Jordanian monarch as saying.

Also, Abdullah II warned that the humanitarian situation in the region was getting increasingly dire and pushed for assistance to the Gaza Strip. He rejected any attempts to relocate the population of the enclave or force Gaza civilians to do so.

Israel waged a war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas launched the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

Since the start of the Israeli aggression, more than 5,000 Palestinians have been killed.

Tel Aviv has also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.

The regime has further ordered 1.1 million people in the north of Gaza to evacuate and move south of the coastal sliver.

However, it has continued to rain down bombs on the south, killing large numbers of Palestinians.

The United Nations says about half of the Palestinians in Gaza have been made homeless, still trapped inside the besieged enclave.

The world body’s human rights office says Israel’s complete siege of Gaza, combined with the evacuation order, could amount to a forcible transfer of civilians, breaching international law.

SD/PR