Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also called for “pressure on Israel to halt the massacre in Gaza” during the Arab League summit in Baghdad, where Arabs and UN leaders voiced similar calls. Italy’s government on Saturday also upped its exhortations to Israel to stop deadly military strikes in Gaza, with Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani saying: “Enough with the attacks.”

“We no longer want to see the Palestinian people suffer,” Tajani said during a trip to Sicily, in remarks relayed by his spokesman. “Let’s come to a ceasefire, let’s free the hostages, but let’s leave people who are victims of Hamas alone,” he was cited as saying.

More than 100 people in Gaza were killed in Israeli strikes on Friday and another 10 on Saturday, according to the Gaza civil defence agency.

International condemnation has escalated over Israel’s military actions, and its blockage of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip, where more than two million people lived before the war started.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also called a little earlier on Saturday for “pressure on Israel to halt the massacre in Gaza” and said Madrid plans a UN resolution demanding an International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s war methods.

Sanchez told the Arab League summit in Baghdad that world leaders should “intensify our pressure on Israel to halt the massacre in Gaza, particularly through the channels afforded to us by international law”, adding that the “unacceptable number” of victims of the Israel-Hamas war violates the “principle of humanity”.

Demonstrations took place in Hamburg, Germany, in the US, and in Paris, France, from Gare du Nord, starting at 2pm local time to call for the end of “massacres” and to mark the 77th anniversary of the Nakba, the forced displacement of Palestinians, which started in 1948 with the creation of Israel.

As Arab leaders on Saturday held this summit in Baghdad, they also urged the international community as well to apply pressure for a Gaza ceasefire and humanitarian aid access to the besieged Palestinian territory.

“We call on the international community… to exert pressure to end the bloodshed and ensure that urgent humanitarian aid can enter without obstacles all areas in need in Gaza,” the leaders said in a joint final statement at the summit.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi urged his US counterpart Donald Trump to apply pressure for a ceasefire.

“I call on President Trump, as a leader who wants to consolidate peace, to apply all necessary efforts and pressure for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip,” which would pave the way “for a serious political process in which he would be a mediator and a sponsor,” Sisi said in his address to an Arab League.

Finally, United Nations chief Antonio Guterres called for a permanent and immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

“We need a permanent ceasefire, now,” Guterres told leaders gathered in Baghdad. “I am alarmed by reported plans by Israel to expand ground operations and more.”

Israel and Hamas resumed ceasefire talks on Saturday in Doha in Qatar, both sides said, even as Israeli forces ramped up a bombing campaign that has killed hundreds of people over 72 hours, and mobilised for a massive new ground assault.

A senior Hamas official said this new round of indirect negotiations with Israel, aimed at ending the war in Gaza, started “without any preconditions” on Saturday.

“Hamas will present its viewpoint on all issues, especially ending the war, (Israel’s) withdrawal and prisoner exchange.”

Prior rounds of negotiations have failed to secure a breakthrough on ending the war, and a two-month ceasefire between the sides fell apart when Israel resumed its operations in Gaza on 18 March.

The renewed fighting came after Israel imposed a total aid blockade on the territory that UN agencies warn has created critical shortages of food, clean water, fuel and medicines.

(AFP)