US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced on Tuesday that his country will provide new aid to the Palestinians worth $404 million.

Blinken's speech came in his speech during the main session of the Gaza Emergency Response Conference, held in the Dead Sea region in Jordan.

Blinken said: “Today I announced additional aid to the Palestinians worth $404 million.”

He added: "Some expressed their concern about the suffering experienced by the Palestinians in Gaza, including countries that have the ability to give greatly, but which sometimes gave little or nothing."

He also stressed that "the single most effective step we can take to confront the humanitarian challenges in Gaza is to reach an immediate and permanent ceasefire."

Blinken, whose country provides absolute support to Israel in its war on Gaza, said: “We know that all Palestinian civilians suffering in Gaza are not numbers or nobody, but human beings.”

He stressed that "Israel must take further measures to reduce the number of civilian deaths and protect civilian facilities."

He said, "All countries of the world supported the ceasefire proposal in Gaza and we are awaiting Hamas' response," referring to the resolution adopted by the UN Security Council on Monday evening based on a proposal announced by US President Joe Biden last week, which he said was "Israeli."

Following the Security Council session, Hamas announced its readiness to cooperate with mediators to enter into indirect negotiations (with Israel) regarding the implementation of the principles stipulated in the Security Council resolution, the most important of which are “a permanent ceasefire, complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, the return of the displaced, and the rejection of any demographic change.”

With broad international participation, the main session of the Emergency Humanitarian Response Conference in Gaza at the Dead Sea began on Tuesday afternoon, according to Anadolu’s correspondent.

In addition to Jordan, Egypt, the European Union and the United Nations are participating in organizing the conference, and it is attended by heads of state and government and representatives of international organizations.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a war on Gaza that has left nearly 122,000 Palestinians dead and wounded, most of them children and women, and about 10,000 missing amid massive destruction and famine that claimed the lives of children and the elderly.

Israel continues its war despite a decision by the UN Security Council to stop it immediately, and orders from the International Court of Justice to end the invasion of the city of Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, and to take measures to prevent acts of “genocide” and improve the miserable humanitarian situation in Gaza.

Source: Anatolia