The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is coming out with a joint statement that will likely condemn the ongoing violence happening in both Israel and the Gaza Strip this week, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Wednesday. Varying national statements have been issued by the bloc’s member states but the regional grouping has yet to issue a united position on the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel and its ensuing retaliatory strikes on the militants in southern Gaza. ‘It is a statement and the draft is still moving but (on) the condemnation issue it will be limited to the terrorism and violence on both sides,’ DFA Undersecretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro told reporters in a presser in Pasay. Lazaro said Indonesia initiated the call for a joint statement in its capacity as ASEAN chair. ASEAN’s previous position over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had been consistent, with the bloc supporting the two-state solution. But the statement will come following the reported strike on al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City that killed hundreds of civilians on Tuesday. The Health Ministry in the Hamas-controlled enclave blamed the Israeli side while the Israel Defense Forces said a rocket fired by the Islamic Jihad militants toward Israel ‘misfired and hit the hospital’. The DFA has yet to issue an official comment on the specific hospital strike but said attacks on civilian infrastructure ‘is a concern not only for us the Philippines but even the whole of ASEAN’. ‘ASEAN will come up with a statement within the day or tomorrow on this issue of humanitarian law,’ Lazaro said. ‘That is a concern that will be hopefully conveyed,’ she added. ‘2 Filipino doctors safe’ There are a total of 135 Filipinos in the Gaza Strip, two working as doctors there. In the same briefing, DFA Undersecretary Eduardo Jose De Vega said all Filipinos in the besieged enclave are safe and the majority of them are still waiting for the borders between Gaza and Egypt to open and leave. ‘So far, our embassy is saying the Filipinos are safe and so far there are no attacks in their areas,’ he said.
Source: Philippines News Agency
