Cairo, March 26: Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez rejected the ongoing Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip.

During a phone conversation on Tuesday, they emphasised the necessity of an immediate ceasefire, an end to the Israeli ground incursion into the Strip, and the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid, Xinhua news agency reported quoting a statement from the Egyptian presidency.

Sisi reaffirmed Egypt’s opposition to any attempts to displace Palestinians from their land. Sanchez backed an Arab-led plan to rebuild Gaza and aligned Spain’s position with Egypt in rejecting the forced displacement of Palestinians or any move to undermine their cause, the statement said.

Sanchez, in a brief statement on X, confirmed his discussion with Sisi and called for “the immediate restoration of the ceasefire and a return to the negotiating table to achieve peace and stability in the region based on the two-state solution.”

“This tragic spiral of destruction and death must end,” he added.

The two leaders also discussed the situations in Syria and Lebanon, emphasising the need to maintain both countries’ stability and territorial integrity.

Israel resumed strikes in Gaza on March 18 after its ceasefire deal with Hamas that began on January 19 unraveled. Israeli forces subsequently launched ground operations across southern, northern, and central Gaza. The death toll from this new escalation has topped 792, according to the Gaza-based health authorities.

United Nations, March 25: India has told Pakistan to vacate the illegally occupied territory in Jammu and Kashmir and stop justifying state-sponsored terrorism.

Replying to a Pakistan attempt to raise Kashmir for the umpteenth time in the Security Council, India’s Permanent Representative P. Harish said on Monday, “Such repeated references neither validate their illegal claims nor justify their state-sponsored cross-border terrorism.”

“Pakistan continues to illegally occupy the territory of Jammu and Kashmir, which it must vacate,” he said, adding “That would be in keeping with Security Council Resolution 47 adopted on April 21, 1948, that requires Pakistan to withdraw its forces and infiltrators from Kashmir.”

“Jammu and Kashmir was, is, and will always be an integral part of India,” Harish declared.

He added, “We would advise Pakistan not to try to divert the attention of this forum to drive their parochial and divisive agenda.”

Earlier during the debate on the new realities facing peacekeeping, Syed Tariq Fatemi, Pakistan’s junior foreign affairs minister, said the Council should enforce its resolution on a plebiscite for Kashmir.

However, that resolution made it a point to demand that Pakistan “secure the withdrawal from the State of Jammu and Kashmir of tribesmen and Pakistani nationals not normally resident therein who have entered the State for the purpose of fighting”. The resolution also orders Pakistan to stop aiding militants or infiltrating. It demanded that Islamabad “prevent any intrusion into the State of such elements and any furnishing of material aid to those fighting in the State”.

A plebiscite could not be held when the Council resolution was passed because Pakistan sabotaged it by refusing to abide by the precondition of its withdrawal from Kashmir. India maintains that a plebiscite is now irrelevant because the people of Kashmir have made clear their allegiance to India by participating in elections and by electing the leaders of the territories.

Fatemi brought up the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) that was set up in 1949 to monitor the ceasefire along the Line of Control. India barely tolerates the UNMOGIP’s presence in India considering it a relic of history made irrelevant by the 1972 Shimla agreement between the leaders of the two countries declaring the Kashmir dispute a bilateral issue with no room for third parties. India has ousted UNMOGIP from the government-provided building in New Delhi.

Jerusalem, March 25: The Israeli military acknowledged that it mistakenly struck a building belonging to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Gaza due to misidentification.

Israeli military forces operating in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza, fired at the building after “identifying suspects inside who they perceived as a threat,” a military statement said.

A subsequent inspection revealed the identification was incorrect, and the troops “were unaware of the building’s affiliation” with the ICRC at the time of the shooting, Xinhua news agency reported quoting the military statement.

Earlier on Monday, the ICRC said in a statement that its office in Rafah “was damaged by an explosive projectile despite being clearly marked and notified to all parties.”

“Fortunately, no staff were injured in this incident, but this has a direct impact on the ICRC’s ability to operate. The ICRC strongly decries the attack against its premises,” said the ICRC, which runs a field hospital in Rafah and other facilities in the Palestinian enclave to treat mass casualties from Israeli strikes.

In the statement, the ICRC also said that it lost contact on Sunday with emergency medical technicians from the Palestine Red Crescent Society, and that humanitarian workers in Gaza were killed and injured last week.

Israel ended a two-month ceasefire with Hamas on Tuesday by resuming air and ground attacks in the Palestinian enclave, which have so far killed more than 730 Palestinians. In response, Hamas also made several rocket launches targeting Israeli territory, most of which Israel said have been intercepted.