MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines joined the international community in calling for an end to the "ever-worsening" humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said.

The Philippines is "deeply concerned by recent developments, including the Israeli government’s planned full military takeover of Gaza," the DFA said in a statement on Monday.

It added Manila is also worried about the "continuing restrictions on access to life-saving humanitarian aid such as food and water, large-scale displacement, attacks affecting civilians, and reports of settlement expansion in the West Bank."

"These developments aggravate an already dire humanitarian situation and further diminish prospects for a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace in the Middle East," the DFA said.

"The Philippines therefore strongly calls on Israel to heed the ceasefire proposal as a crucial step to protect civilians and revive the path to peace," it added.

The Palestinian Embassy in Manila last Aug. 20 said the "humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is worsening as Israel threatens full occupation, with engineered mass starvation, relentless bombardment, and never-ending cycles of forced displacement."

"In the past months, over 780,000 Palestinians were displaced, and 400+ homes leveled in Zeitoun alone. [The] UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) warns 112 children fall into malnutrition every day," it added.

Philippines presses call for ceasefire in Gaza

Oren Marmorstein, Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, rejected "the attempt to impose foreign dictates" on its construction plan near Jerusalem.

"The Jewish people are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel. At no point in history has there ever been a Palestinian state, and any attempt to argue otherwise has no legal, factual, or historical basis," Marmorstein wrote on X on Saturday.

"There is no other nation in the world that has a stronger, longer-standing, and better-documented connection to its land than the Jewish people has to the Land of Israel, and this connection and right do not require the affirmation of foreign governments," he said.

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