DOHA, Qatar

Participants in the 44th Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit on Tuesday called for pursuing mediation efforts to reach a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

“We will continue to make efforts to restore the truce and release hostages and prisoners,” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani told a press conference following the conclusion of the GCC summit in the Qatari capital, Doha.

Sheikh Mohammed, who is also Qatar’s foreign minister, said participants in the GCC summit underlined the importance of “continuing mediation to reach a durable and sustained cease-fire and opening crossings and safe corridors for the delivery of humanitarian and relief aid and the essential necessities to Gaza’s population.”

They also unanimously agreed on the necessity of “launching a political process that leads to a lasting, comprehensive, and just peace for the Palestinian people with their legitimate rights based on international legitimacy resolutions, the Arab Peace Initiative and the two-state solution and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital,” he added.

Earlier Tuesday, Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani said on Tuesday that the Gaza Strip is not an Israeli security matter.

“The challenge does not lie in resolving the Gaza issue as if it were a separate or Israeli security matter that requires security arrangements that subject the strip to its requirements,” the emir said in his opening speech at the summit.

“The solution rather lies in ending the (Israeli) occupation and resolving the issue of the Palestinian people,” he added.

The emir labeled it shameful the international inaction to the ongoing Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip.

The GCC summit was held amid relentless Israeli air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by Hamas on Oct. 7. At least 15,899 Palestinians have been killed and more than 42,000 others injured ever since, according to health authorities in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli death toll in the Hamas attack stood at 1,200, according to official figures.