Taking forward the comprehensive plan to end the Gaza conflict is today a widely shared priority: Jaishankar

Ending the violence in the Gaza Strip is a ‘shared priority’ for the world, said External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Saturday (January 31, 2026), welcoming representatives and Ministers at the second India-Arab Foreign Ministers meeting. Delivering the inaugural address at the meeting, which came ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s expected visit to Israel later this month, Mr. Jaishankar expressed India’s support for ending the violence in Gaza as well as in other regions such as Sudan, Libya, and Lebanon.

“Taking forward the comprehensive plan to end the Gaza conflict is today a widely shared priority. Various countries have made policy declarations on peace plan, individually or collectively. This is the larger context in which we deliberate on the region’s challenges and prospects,” said Mr. Jaishankar. He also mentioned the attempts at peace building in Gaza during the October 2025 Sharm-el-Sheikh Peace Summit, which was followed by the UN Security Council Resolution 2803 that supported the idea of a ‘transitional administration’ and authorised the setting up of an International Stabilisation Force (ISF) for ending the conflict that has killed at least than 72,000 Palestinians.

India started 2026 by engaging major powers in the Arab world in security and foreign policy dialogue. On January 19, New Delhi hosted UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan and his top Ministers. It was followed by a meeting in Riyadh between Indian and Saudi Arabian officials on security matters.

India’s presence in conflict-hit Yemen has also witnessed some considerable improvement over the past few months as India opened a facility in Yemen’s Aden last October, which will work as an extension of the Consular and Liaisoning Office of Embassy of India in Saudi Arabia. The conflict in Yemen also found mention in Mr. Jaishankar’s speech, where the threat posed by the Houthis to international shipping was indirectly mentioned as an “additional implication” of the conflict in Yemen.

Mr. Jaishankar said multiple conflicts in the Arab world stretching from Libya to Sudan to Gaza “impact us all, and India as a proximate region”. “Then there is the concern about Lebanon, where India has troops committed to UNIFIL. Where Libya is concerned, all of us have an interest in advancing the national dialogue process. The direction of events in Syria is also critical for the well-being of the region,” said Mr. Jaishankar, calling for strengthening “forces of stability, peace and prosperity”.

The second India-Arab Foreign Ministers meeting was attended by several Foreign Ministers and representatives from the Arab world, including the Foreign Affairs Minister of the Government of National Unity of Libya, Eltaher S.M. Elbaour, and the Foreign Minister of Oman, Syd. Badr Bin Hamed Al Busaidi, Foreign Minister of the State of Palestine, Varsen Aghabekian Shahin, Secretary General of the League of Arab States, and Ahmed Aly Ahmed Aboulight. Saudi Arabia was represented by Abdulrahman Ibrahim Ali Al Rassi, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Multilateral International Affairs, and the United Arab Emirates was represented by Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sheikh Khalifa Shaheen AL Marar. Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Mauritania, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen were represented by Secretary-level officials.