German special envoy for Middle East lauds Saudi Arabia’s Gaza aid effort

German special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues, Deike Potzel, has lauded Saudi Arabia for its Gaza aid efforts.

During a visit to Riyadh on Sunday, she also highlighted Germany’s humanitarian contribution.

Potzel told Arab News: “I would like to use this opportunity to appreciate very much the commitment of Saudi Arabia. It is really wonderful to see how much aid has gone in from Saudi Arabia, it’s an enormous commitment.

“I was very glad to see our colleagues from (the Saudi aid agency) KSrelief today. I’m very much appreciating what they are doing to help people in Gaza.”

While in Riyadh, the ambassador held talks with Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, adviser at the Royal Court and KSrelief general supervisor, to discuss aid initiatives for the people of Palestine.

The Kingdom has stepped up its humanitarian support for Gaza with food, medical, and shelter aid, and on Sunday morning, 20 planes carrying supplies arrived at Al-Arish International Airport in Egypt.

Potzel said that during the meeting, they had “compared notes of what each of us are doing,” adding that Al-Rabeeah had recently visited the airport and the Rafah border crossing.

“We were talking very much about the bottlenecks still for aid to get in and to see what we can jointly do and what our joint main points are,” she said.

Potzel pointed out that one of her key aims was “to find ways to bring more aid to Gaza,” adding that Germany remained “committed to helping the people in Gaza in terms of humanitarian assistance.”

Potzel was appointed to her role by Germany’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock who has herself made three visits to the region since Oct. 7.

During a press conference in Amman on Oct. 19, Baerbock said: “We are increasing our support for Palestinians, who have also become the victims of this terrorist attack by Hamas (on Israel). The German government has decided to increase our humanitarian assistance for the civilian population in Gaza by 50 million euros ($54.7 million) with immediate effect.”

The minister added that the funding would be used to support international organizations such as the World Food Programme, UNICEF, and UNRWA to provide food supplied for people in Gaza.

“Our message is clear; we will not abandon innocent Palestinian mothers, fathers, and children,” Baerbock added. She noted that Germany had spent more than 160 million euros this year on humanitarian support for Gaza.

Potzel pointed out that the current most pressing issue on the ground in Gaza was the need to send in more supplies.

“That means water supplies must be running, and for that we also need fuel to get in, and for that we have been pushing for a long time. Also to get the desalinization plants running again, to get the water pump running in the wells. It’s a very broad portfolio (of objectives),” the special envoy said.

She also highlighted the urgent need for medical equipment and medicines in Gaza and said that the German government was working to provide assistance for medical supplies funding for Jordan.

In addition, Potzel noted that Germany was working with its Egyptian partners to provide 1.5 million euros of medical supplies to Egypt to treat patients arriving in the country from Gaza.

“We are very much advocating for humanitarian pauses so we are very happy to see now that some of the hostages are being released and that there is a pause so more aid can go in and more people are safe to go and get the aid.

“We are providing funding for the UN organizations, for the Red Crescent societies, for them to deliver to the people in Gaza,” she added.

Following her visit to Riyadh, Potzel was due to move on to Israel for talks in Tel Aviv.

She said: “We will talk (in Israel) about other border crossings to be used. So far, it is only Rafah, and we want to talk to Israel and keep talking to them about opening other crossings and also the issue of fuel and how to bring in more fuel, and other issues in order provide more aid to get in.”