Many leaders spoke on Israel-Hamas conflict at virtual G20 meeting: Jaishankar

New Delhi, Nov 22 (PTI) Many leaders spoke on the Israel-Hamas conflict at the virtual G20 meeting with calls made for extending timely humanitarian assistance, not allowing the violence to spread and to find a long-term solution to the Palestine issue, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Wednesday.

Briefing reporters on the virtual G20 meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Jaishankar said all 21 members, including the African Union, nine guest countries and 11 international organisations participated.

He said there was a discussion on the progress of the agenda of the New Delhi Summit that took place in September.

Jaishankar said the West Asia/Gaza situation came up for discussion at the meeting in 'greater detail' and to some extent the Ukraine conflict and its consequences were also deliberated upon.

The virtual G20 summit was also very significant because it was the first gathering of world leaders after the outbreak of the conflict in West Asia.

'As I said many leaders spoke about it and what we heard really was the condemnation of terrorism, expression of deep concern over the loss of civilian lives, calls for extending timely and adequate humanitarian assistance, not allowing the conflict to spread and to find a long term solution to the Palestine issue,' Jaishankar said.

The G20 members on the whole welcomed the understanding which has been reached on the release of hostages, on the flow of relief material to Gaza and some pause in the fighting, he said.

'Overall there was a strong sentiment expressed by the leaders to ensure implementation of the commitments which were agreed to at Delhi,' he said.

Modi extended India's support to Brazil for its upcoming presidency, Jaishankar said and noted that India will be part of the G20 troika. PTI ASK ZMN