Indonesia ready to send peacekeepers, medical staff to Gaza

Singapore, Singapore – AFP

Indonesia is ready to send “significant peacekeeping forces” as well as medical personnel to Gaza if Hamas accepts a new cease-fire proposal, President-elect Prabowo Subianto has said.

President Joe Biden announced the Israeli roadmap to permanent peace in Gaza on Friday, as Israeli troops pushed into central Rafah despite international objections to any assault on the southern city.

Prabowo, who will succeed President Joko Widodo in October after winning the February elections, welcomed the plan, describing it as “an important step” to ending the war.

If requested by the United Nations, Indonesia was prepared to send “significant peacekeeping forces to maintain and monitor this prospective ceasefire”, Prabowo told the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

“We are also prepared to immediately send medical personnel to operate field hospitals in Gaza with the consent and agreement of all sides.”

Prabowo said Indonesia was ready to “evacuate, receive and to treat” up to 1,000 patients in its hospitals “in the immediate future”.

“In the interests of all sides, we must do our best to achieve a real and lasting solution,” he told the security forum attended by defence ministers from around the world.

Hamas said earlier on Friday that it “considers positively” the Israeli plan.

Biden said the proposal would begin with a six-week complete ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from populated areas of Gaza.

Hamas would in return release Israeli captives.

The two sides would then negotiate a longer-term deal aimed at ending the horrific war that has primarily killed Gaza’s children, minors and women.