During a meeting held in Amman with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, along with the Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), jointly expressed their support for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, ABC News reports.

As RBC notes, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said that Arab countries cannot “accept justification considered as the right to self-defense,” as well as “collective punishment” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. “This cannot be legitimate self-defense at all,” he emphasized.

In response, Blinken said the ceasefire would allow Hamas to "regroup and repeat what it did." He noted that the United States supports "humanitarian pauses" in Israeli operations to allow improved aid flows into the Gaza Strip and increased transit of foreign nationals from the enclave to Egypt.

The Arab ministers also pointed out that it was premature to engage in discussions regarding one of Blinken's key priorities, which is the future of Gaza after the war. They emphasized that the immediate priorities should be ending the violence and ensuring the provision of consistent and long-term humanitarian aid.