Italian PM Giorgia Meloni urges international community to avoid escalation of Israel-Hamas war

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, on Saturday (Oct 21), said that the international community must sidestep an intensification of the conflict between Israel and Hamas and develop a roadmap towards the two-state solution.

She made the remarks during her address at the Cairo International Summit for Peace in the Middle East.

"Although our starting points are far apart, our interests overlap perfectly: that what is happening in Gaza does not become a much wider conflict, a religious war, a clash of civilisations," Meloni said speaking in Italian.

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"I have the impression that this was the real aim of the Hamas attack, not to defend the rights of the Palestinian people, but an attack that would create an unbridgeable gap between the Palestinians and the Israelis, meaning that the target is all of us, and we cannot fall into this trap, which would be very stupid."

The Italian prime minister met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo and travelled to Tel Aviv to meet her Israeli counterpartBenjamin Netanyahu.

During her conversation with Abbas, the two leaders raised concerns about the need to make efforts for a de-escalation of the war between Israel and Hams and for a two-state solution, referring to the idea of establishing two separate and independent states, one for Israelis and one for Palestinians.

"I hope that there is a responsibility on the part of the whole international community, and it seems to me that there is, to speed up this process and provide a structural solution to the conflict," Meloni said.

She further emphasised that a two-state solution must have an exact timeframe.

Guterres urges ceasefire

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, while addressing a Cairo summit, urged for a "humanitarian ceasefire" in the ongoing conflict demanding "action to end this godawful nightmare".

He said that the Palestinian enclave of 2.4 million people was living through "a humanitarian catastrophe" with thousands dead and more than a million displaced.

"We meet in the heart of a region that is reeling in pain and one step from the precipice," he told the meeting that included the leaders of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates as well as of Italy, Spain and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

(With inputs from agencies)

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