STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT. The United States does not support any forced relocation of Palestinians outside of Gaza, U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said. Patel also said Washington was opposed to any re-occupation of Gaza by Israel. He was responding to a question about comments by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling ABC television Israel will “for an indefinite period” have the overall security responsibility for the Palestinian enclave.
Indonesia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said that the purpose of the Indonesia Hospital in Gaza was to “fully” serve Palestinians in response to an accusation by the Israeli military that it has been used by Hamas to launch attacks.
“Indonesia Hospital in Gaza is a facility built by Indonesians fully for humanitarian purposes and to serve the medical needs of Palestinians in Gaza,” said the ministry said in a statement. It added the hospital is run by Palestinian authorities, helped by a few Indonesian volunteers.
Prabowo Subianto said that several Western countries have double standards in responding to the Israeli Zionist military’s brutal attacks on civilians in the Gaza Strip, Palestine. He believes that Western countries have only boasted about human rights, but in fact have not practiced those values.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have reached an agreement to jointly support the Palestinian people in their struggle for independence. This agreement was reached during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the Joint Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, according to a statement from Jokowi’s office.
Indonesia once again urged for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, while stressing that Israel’s barbaric actions are not an act of self-defense.
President Jokowi said that Israeli attacks in Gaza had also hit the Indonesia Hospital in the North Gaza area. Jokowi has urged all parties to adhere to international humanitarian law. He also urged OIC member countries to begin peace talks over the events in Gaza as soon as possible.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was denounced the soaring number of Palestinians killed as Israel pushed ahead with its war against Hamas in Gaza, saying more needs to be done to protect the civilians. In his strongest comments to date on civilians bearing the brunt of the war, Blinken welcomed the four-hour humanitarian Israeli pauses the White House announced on Thursday but said further action was required to protect Gaza’s civilians.
The U.S. government believes that after Israel’s war with Hamas is over, Palestinians should rule Gaza. Washington rejects Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s idea that after the war, Israel will be responsible for indefinite security over Gaza. At a press conference in Tokyo, US. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that after the war, the United States does not want re-occupation of Gaza. According to him, a post-conflict government must include a Palestinian-led government.
The Foreign Ministry publicly defended on Monday the Indonesia Hospital in Gaza from Israeli allegations linking the privately funded health facility to Hamas, a group that launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7. It was the correct decision of the ministry, although a bit too late.
We support Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi’s move to jump to the defense of the hospital, due to the humanitarian work it has been conducting in Gaza. The hospital was initially built using a crowd-funding scheme, the private sector then participated in constructing the hospital as proof of Indonesia’s real contribution to the Palestinian people.
Unfortunately, there is a widespread perception of reluctance by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo administration to recognize the hospital’s contribution, perhaps because the organization behind it, the Medical Emergency Rescue Committee (MER-C), is not a supporter of the government.
U.S. President Joe Biden did not respond to President Jokowi’s call for action for Gaza in a joint press statement at the White House. In fact, President Biden only mentioned the bilateral relationship between Indonesia and the United States. “In addition, we will continue to collaborate with ASEAN to advance a free, open, secure, and prosperous Indo-Pacific. I also want to thank President Jokowi for his ASEAN leadership this year,” President Biden said. In fact, Biden emphasized the 75-year partnership between Indonesia and the United States.
Southeast Asian defense ministers called Wednesday for an end to the Israel-Hamas war and for the world to collaborate on setting up humanitarian aid corridors in Gaza, but they struggled on how to address the prolonged civil strife in Myanmar.
Defense ministers of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations meeting in Jakarta also reiterated the significance of maintaining freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea and respecting international rules to prevent maritime clashes in the disputed waters.
Enoch, an Indonesian who calls Surabaya home, no longer wants to be openly identified as a Jew, explaining “Gaza changed all that” for him in a Southeast Asian country where a conflict 9,000km away has stirred protests and even a fatwa on Israeli goods.
Anti-Israel sentiments are on the rise in Indonesia – home to the world’s largest Muslim population – and where opposition to the actions of the Middle Eastern state has quickly segued into wider anti-Jewish feelings.
That is seeding fear among the nation’s small Jewish minority, many the descendants of Ashkenazi Dutch Jews and other Europeans who settled in the then Dutch Indies in the early 19th century.
U.S. President Joe Biden said the end of the Hamas-Israel conflict must result in Palestine becoming a “real” state coexisting with Israel. According to The New York Times, Biden said that if the Hamas-Israel war ends, his party will negotiate with Arab countries about the next steps in recognizing Palestine as a state.
Indonesia condemns the Israeli attack on the Indonesia Hospital in Gaza, which has left several civilians dead, Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi said. Retno urged all countries, especially those that have close relations with Israel, to use their influence and power to urge it to stop its atrocities.
She said that her ministry has lost contact with three Indonesian citizens volunteering at the hospital. The minister further said that her ministry has also tried to get in touch with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Committee of the Red Cross, but has not received an answer yet from the two organizations.
Israeli tanks have surrounded northern Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital after artillery fire killed at least 12 Palestinians in the complex since Monday morning. Al Jazeera reported at least 700 people including medical staff and injured people inside the hospital. Amongst the killed were doctors as well as patients.
The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that the Israeli army had targeted the surgery floor of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, causing significant damage to its medical equipment.
Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi, top diplomats of the Arab League, and representatives of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) met with Chinese Foreign Affairs Minister Wang Yi in Beijing, China. The meeting was to gather support in calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, where more than 13,000 Palestinians have been killed, Marsudi said.
Retno also condemned what she said was an Israeli attack on an Indonesian-run hospital in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian enclave that, according to reports, killed at least 12 civilians, after which hospital personnel lost contact with three Indonesian volunteers. Retno added that she and the Arab league ministers will depart to Moscow to gather support for ceasefire.
