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The Iran war is distracting the US and the international community from the continuing crisis in Gaza, compounding the suffering of millions of people, Palestine’s Foreign Minister has said.
“The whole issue was marginalised. There was a bigger issue in the eyes of the world, and the focus was elsewhere," Palestinian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Varsen Aghabekian told The National in an interview on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey.
The shift in the world’s attention to the Iran war has led to “more suffering” and more delays in Gazans getting, “whatever they need to receive immediately in terms of recovery”, Ms Aghabekian said.
“We've seen it in the last 50 days, the whole area was affected, and mostly the Palestinians, because the Palestinian issue, whenever there's a conflict, becomes marginalised,” she said.
Palestinian Foreign Minister
The Iran war has dominated government agendas in recent weeks as the fallout spread across the Middle East and sent energy prices spiralling, leaving world leaders seeking ways out of an impending global economic crisis.
Six months after the signing of a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire agreement, a lack of focus on the war-torn enclave means that the deal’s provisions have not been implemented in a way that improves Gazans' lives, Ms Aghabekian said. Aid deliveries remain insufficient and reduced significantly between January and mid-April, aid organisations and the UN say.
“The situation is extremely dire. The killing continues, the injuries continue, the destruction of the infrastructure continues,” Ms Aghabekian said.
'Living on trash'
Rubbish piles are compounding the misery for millions of Gazans who are mostly still living in makeshift tents after two years of war, with Israeli strikes destroying their homes.
“People in Gaza are living not only on rubble, but on tons of trash, and the rats are eating the fingers, the ears of children, men and women, and the world is watching,” Ms Aghabekian said.
The White House trumpeted its peace plan, endorsed by the UN Security Council last November, as a path to “lasting peace and stability”.
In January, the Trump administration established a Board of Peace to help fulfil the plan, which included provisions on hostage and prisoner releases, a ceasefire, increasing aid entering Gaza, the demilitarisation of the enclave and long-term reconstruction.
Israel and Hamas agreed to release prisoners and hostages but other provisions of the deal have stalled. Although there has been a reduction in the intensity of the violence, 765 Gazans have been killed since the ceasefire came into effect last October, the UN said on Friday, quoting Palestinian Health Ministry figures. Israel has also accused Hamas of breaking the ceasefire agreement.
US-based organisation Refugees International said earlier this month that key provisions in the peace plan have been “only partially implemented” or have “failed to materialise altogether”. Later phases of the plan, such as Hamas’s disarmament, handing over Gaza’s governance to a UN-sanctioned Palestinian committee and reconstruction, are farther away.
Washington needs to overcome the complications of the Palestinian conflict and give enough attention to the issue to resolve it, Ms Aghabekian said.
“It is very complicated, and it has been complicated for eight decades. But putting complications aside, the situation needs to be managed,” she said.
The US “took it upon themselves to create this Board of Peace and this framework agreement”, which the Palestinian government has embraced, she said. “If that's a first step, then we are with it, but we need to see that first step moving forward.”
Turn pledges into action
The leaders of Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, who carried out mediation efforts to reach the agreement and signed the peace plan alongside Mr Trump, need to increase efforts to ensure its pledges become reality, Ms Aghabekian said.
“All sides need to be held accountable in terms of implementing that agreement,” she said. The timeline needs to be “as soon as possible” to minimise human suffering, she added.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is part of the occupied West Bank-based Government of Palestine, whose main political groups have often sparred with Hamas. That organisation has for years controlled the Gaza Strip and carried out the deadly October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel that that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel's subsequent two-year campaign in Gaza killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Gaza's health authorities. It has also demolished most of the strip's buildings and displaced most of its population.
Israel's conduct in Gaza has given rise to charges of genocide and deliberately starving its population. Israel denies the accusations.
Gaza aside, the situation in the occupied West Bank is also becoming increasingly dire in the shadow of regional war, Ms Aghabekian noted.
Palestinian Foreign Minister
Violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers, whose homes are illegal under international law, would take place whether or not there was a regional conflict, Ms Aghabekian added. “But it intensifies when there is focus elsewhere, because then they think they can do whatever they want with less focus on the wrongdoing,” she said.
In the first three months of 2026, the number of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank displaced amid settler violence and access restrictions reached nearly 1,700 people, surpassing the whole of 2025, the UN’s humanitarian affairs office reported at the end of March.
Responsible for Palestine’s relations with foreign countries, Ms Aghabekian is calling on other nations to increase measures that would make settler activity and expansion more difficult. In meetings with foreign counterparts, she asks that they freeze assets, deal with settlers who have dual citizenships, ban settlement products and prevent the passage of materials heading to settlements from their countries.
The EU requires all member states to clearly label products made in settlements as such, but does not ban their sale. Some western countries have sanctioned violent settlers.
“There are so many things that can be done, and some countries have already taken these measures,” Ms Aghabekian said. “But we want more.”
The international community has showed its ability to act when it protested fiercely against Israel preventing the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem from celebrating Palm Sunday in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Ms Aghabekian, herself a Palestinian Christian, said.
Israeli police claimed they blocked access for safety reasons, given the threat from the war with Iran. Although not in time for the Palm Sunday Mass, authorities reversed the decision following the international condemnation.
“If that can happen, other things can happen, if there is collective work and focus on the violations,” she said.
