Travellers who were aboard Panama-flagged cruise ship Pacific World gather with signs in solidarity with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as the ship is docked at the port of Port Said at the Mediterranean terminus of the Suez Canal in northeastern Egypt on November 8, 2023. AFP
"The organizations call on French President Emmanuel Macron and heads of state to do everything in their power to obtain an immediate ceasefire," they said in a statement Wednesday.
The signatories' call, which comes one day before a humanitarian conference on the Gaza Strip is due to be held in Paris, include Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International, Oxfam, Action Against Hunger, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) and the International Federation for Human Rights.
Other priorities should include concrete measures to free civilian captives and protect all civilian populations, guaranteeing entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza and respecting international humanitarian law, the groups said.
"We are getting increasingly desperate appeals for protection and aid from our humanitarian workers inside the locked-down Gaza Strip," NRC chief Jan Egeland said in the statement.
Egeland added that it is unacceptable that there is still no humanitarian ceasefire, no humanitarian corridor, and no end to the suffocating siege of the strip.
Thursday's humanitarian conference aims to "mobilize all partners and stakeholders to respond to the needs of Gazans", a Macron adviser told reporters Wednesday on condition of anonymity.
Macron's office also said that no Israeli representative will attend, although he will inform Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the results.
G7 Foreign ministers meeting in Japan on Wednesday called for humanitarian pauses and corridors to protect civilians but stopped short of calling for a ceasefire.
Short link: