The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday said Nigeria was observing the conflict between Israeli and Palestine forces with “great concern.”
Since Monday, Israel and Palestine forces have clashed, resulting in the deaths of at least 65 Palestinians, including 16 children, and seven in Israel.
The violence was triggered by weekend unrest at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound, which is sacred to both Muslims and Jews.
The disturbances, in which riot police had repeatedly clashed with Palestinians, has been driven by anger over the looming evictions of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of east Jerusalem.
According to the statement, signed by Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ferdinand Nwonye ,The Ministry of Foreign Affairs wishes to state that the Federal Government of Nigeria is watching with great concern, the unfolding developments in Israel and the State of Palestine and urges both parties to see reason and de-escalate the hostilities.
He added that The Nigerian Government further urges the two parties to remain committed to the two-state solution and, in the meantime, guarantee the rights of all citizens to live in peace and dignity.
On Thursday, Israel deployed additional troops to Gaza’s border as the military conflict with Palestinian Islamists raged on, while inside Israel security forces scrambled to contain deadly riots between Jews and Arabs.
Despite diplomatic efforts to halt the violence, which US President Joe Biden said he hoped would end “sooner than later”, hundreds of rockets tore through the skies over the Gaza Strip overnight.
Israel’s civil aviation authority said it had diverted all incoming passenger flights headed for Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport to Ramon airport in the south, due to the rocket fire.
Air raid warnings went off across Israel, including in the country’s north for the first time in years — which the army later said was a “false alarm”.
Israel’s air force launched multiple strikes, targeting what it described as locations linked to the “counterintelligence infrastructure” of Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza, as well as the house of Iyad Tayeb, one of the movement’s commanders.
In Gaza, 67 people have been killed so far — including 17 children — and nearly 400 wounded in days of near relentless Israeli air strikes.
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