UPDATE - No sign Israel making progress on achieving its goals in Gaza: Saudi Arabia

ADDS MINISTER'S STATEMENT ON PEACE FOR ISRAEL AND PALSETINE

By Ibrahim Al-Khazen

ISTANBUL (AA) - Saudi Arabia said Tuesday that there is no sign that Israel is making progress towards achieving its goals in the Gaza Strip.

“We do not see signs that the Israeli goals in Gaza are close to being achieved,” Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.​​​​​​​

“Our priority is to find a path to calm through real interaction in the region,” he said. “We must focus on reducing tensions through reaching a cease-fire in Gaza."

The top Saudi diplomat also expressed concern over the growing tensions in the Red Sea and their impact on freedom of navigation.

“We must focus on the situation in Gaza because it affects the region and increases tension in the Red Sea,” he said.

“The ongoing suffering in Gaza will likely create never-ending cycles of violence,” he warned.

Prince Faisal also emphasized that “peace and security for Israel is intimately linked with peace and security for the Palestinians.''

''That is something that we have supported in the kingdom since 1981, the proposal for peace, and we are fully onboard with that,” he added.

''We agree that regional peace includes peace for Israel, but that can only happen through peace for the Palestinians, through a Palestinian state.”

Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7 which Tel Aviv says killed 1,200 people.

At least 24,285 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and 61,154 injured, said Palestinian health authorities.

According to the UN, 85% of the population of Gaza is already internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure is damaged or destroyed.

*Writing by Mohammad Sio