Fifty years ago, at the height of the Yom Kippur war, there was a deep fear that the wars between Israel and Egypt might never end. With devastating losses in the Sinai and whole armies facing encirclement by the Suez Canal, few expected the narrow diplomatic openings to lead to a lasting peace between the foes. Today we face a situation just as perilous. Hamas’s appalling terrorism against Israel on 7 October led to the darkest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust, while the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is playing out on an unimaginable scale, with thousands of civilians dead, streets flattened and more than a million people displaced.
We must not look away. Instead, once again diplomacy must work urgently to find those narrowing openings. This week, at meetings with foreign ministers in Amman, Doha and Cairo, it became clear to me that an immediate humanitarian pause in the fighting is the most realistic way to immediately alleviate the suffering of civilians in Gaza, and secure the release of the hostages. That is why our position is shared with our major allies, the US and the EU.
