New Delhi: India appears to have endorsed a call for humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza in a joint statement with the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, January 11.
The statement came after the visit of UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan to Gujarat from January 9-10, as the chief guest of the Vibrant Gujarat summit.
The statement touches upon several points of India-UAE partnership, including note on Memorandums of Understanding signed by the two heads of government.
Towards the end, it noted that Modi and Al Nahyan both emphasised on the importance of multilateralism and “called for collective action to promote a just, rules-based global order.” The Indian side, according to the statement, congratulated the UAE for its successful tenure as an elected member of the UN Security Council for the 2022-23 term, and commended the efforts led by the UAE in the UNSC – including the adoption of resolution 2720 penned by the UAE concerning the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Then it said:
“Both leaders reiterated the need to unite efforts to immediately reach a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza to allow safe, unhindered, and expanded humanitarian access at scale.”
This is a rare line to have made its way into a bilateral document signed by India. India has so far not mentioned the “ceasefire” in any national statements made at the UN during discussions on voting about the violence in Gaza.
It supported the UNGA resolution in December that called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, but even then, India’s explanation of vote had not referred to any ceasefires.
On January 9, while speaking at the UN General Assembly India’s permanent representative to the UN Ruchira Kamboj said that the ongoing conflict had “led to [the] large-scale loss of civilian lives, especially women and children, and has resulted in an alarming humanitarian crisis”.
While stating that the scale of the loss of civilian lives in the Israel-Hamas war is “unacceptable”, India also asserted that the trigger for the war was Hamas’s terror attack and called for the unconditional release of hostages held by the Palestinian militant group.