India offered humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, which has been targeted by Israeli military strikes, days after PM Narendra Modi spoke with Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority.
An IAF C-17 flight carrying nearly 6.5 tonnes of medical aid and 32 tonnes of disaster relief material for the people of Palestine arrived in Egypt, the government said, adding that the Indian ambassador in Cairo handed over the relief material to the Egyptian Red Crescent for onward transmission to Palestine. Israel has allowed limited relief items to be supplied to Gaza through the Egypt Gaza Rafah border crossing.
“The material includes essential life-saving medicines, surgical items, tents, sleeping bags, tarpaulins, sanitary utilities, water purification tablets among other necessary items,” the foreign ministry spokesperson said.
PM talks to Jordan King, calls for early conflict resolution
PM Modi called for coordinated efforts for "early resolution of the security and humanitarian situation" in a conversation with Jordan's King Abdullah II, the third West Asian leader he has spoken to since the terror attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7 and the latter's retaliatory bombing of Gaza. This is another indication of India's evolving stance on the Israel-Hamas war.
The assertion by Modi after the talks, in which he also underlined India’s concerns over terrorism, is significant as it’s the closest that India has come to calling for a ceasefire and came a day after India despatched aid for civilians in Gaza. The US had last week vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called for “humanitarian pauses’’ in the conflict but the EU indicated it might back such a pause to facilitate distribution of aid in Gaza.
