RAMALLAH, Palestine

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in Egypt’s capital on Sunday to discuss Israel's war on Gaza and cease-fire efforts, reports said Sunday.

Abbas paid a visit to Cairo at the invitation of Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.

During their meeting, it is expected that "the work carried out for an immediate and permanent cessation of the genocidal war waged by Israel against the Palestinians" will be discussed, it said.

The meeting will also focus on preventing attempts to relocate the Palestinian people and stopping attacks by Israeli forces and radical Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.

The two leaders will also discuss Egyptian, Arab, regional and international efforts to deal with the humanitarian disaster taking place in the Gaza Strip.

Israel has launched air and ground attacks on Gaza following a cross-border incursion by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7 last year, killing at least 22,800 Palestinians and injuring more than 58,400 others.

Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.

The Israeli onslaught has left Gaza in ruins, with 60% of the enclave's infrastructure damaged or destroyed and nearly 2 million residents displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicines.


*Writing by Merve Berker