SINGAPORE: Indonesia’s President-elect Prabowo Subianto said on Saturday (Jun 1) that his country was willing to send peacekeeping troops to enforce a ceasefire in Gaza if required.
Speaking at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia’s premier security conference, Prabowo said United States President Joe Biden’s three-phase proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza was a step in the right direction.
“When needed and when requested by the UN, we are prepared to contribute significant peacekeeping forces to maintain and monitor this prospective ceasefire as well as providing protection and security to all parties and to all sides,” Prabowo said.
The 72-year-old former special forces general and current Indonesian defence minister takes on the presidency of the world’s most populous Muslim nation in October.
He said outgoing President Joko Widodo had instructed him to announce that Indonesia was also ready “to evacuate, to receive and to treat with medical care up to 1,000 patients” from Gaza.
The Indonesia Hospital in Gaza, which was run by an Indonesia non-governmental organisation (NGO), closed in November amid the ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Prabowo said a comprehensive investigation into the humanitarian disaster in the Rafah area of Gaza was needed, as well as a “just solution” to the conflict.
“And that means the rights of not only Israel to exist, but also the rights of the Palestinian people to have their own homeland, their own state, living in peace,” he added.