Foreign Minister Analena Burbok met yesterday Saturday with the foreign ministers of Egypt and Turkey and asked for an immediate humanitarian aid mission to be organized for the Gaza Strip, while calling again on Hamas to release the hostages it is holding.

“The people in Gaza are deprived of everything at the moment,” Ms Burbok said after meeting Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Abul Hait in Cairo and saying she was in “ongoing” discussions with the United Nations and partners on how humanitarian aid can be better organized.

The Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip is suitable for this, he pointed out, stressing that Hamas is “solely responsible” for the current situation.

According to her, eight German citizens, who were kidnapped during last weekend’s attack, are also prisoners of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The German embassy in Tel Aviv is in constant communication with the families of the hostages, he said, and once again called on Hamas to release all the hostages. “They are innocent people. Their release is a demand of humanity,” he noted and reiterated that “all channels” are being used to gather information about those holding hostages and “every possible effort is being made to ensure that these innocent people are released.” Mrs. Burbock met in Israel yesterday with the family of 22-year-old German woman Sunny Luke, who is believed to be injured at the hands of Hamas, and with relatives of other abductees and assured the support of the German government. One of the young woman’s relatives, Wilfried Gehr, later said that during the meeting, “the families were allowed to tell the stories of those who were abducted and the Foreign Secretary shed a few tears,” describing the meeting as “a political performance, in which the families were merely used as accomplices, but not enough was done to free the hostages.”

In Cairo, Analena Berbock also met with her Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan, with whom, according to Foreign Ministry circles, she discussed, among other things, the joint efforts to free the German hostages and the issues of humanitarian aid access to Gaza. The two ministers “exchanged information and conclusions from their contacts of the last few days”. They also discussed the situation in Ukraine. They agreed to stay in close contact in the near future.