Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has received Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani, who is on an official visit to Egypt with a high-level Iraqi delegation.

The Spokesman for the Egyptian Presidency said the two sides exchanged views on ways to help the region overcome the serious crises it is facing, which threaten its stability and capabilities.

The two leaders stressed the need for the international community to exert intensive pressure to complete the calm and ceasefire agreement in Gaza, stressing the need to end the humanitarian plight in the Strip and stop the ongoing Israeli escalation in the West Bank.

This is in addition to the need to launch a serious political track that guarantees the Palestinian people their legitimate and just right to an independent state along the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, being the sustainable way to establish peace, security and development in the region.

The two leaders agreed that the current circumstances require intensified joint Arab action, bilaterally and collectively, noting in this regard the tripartite cooperation among Egypt, Iraq and Jordan, and affirming continuing to work to make their projects succeed and achieve their objectives to serve as a model for Arab cooperation and regional integration.

At least 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. Of the 105 remaining hostages, more than 30 have been declared dead. Hamas has also been holding captive two Israeli civilians since 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two soldiers killed in 2014.