Cypriot representatives at the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Wednesday expressed their support for the ceasefire found in Gaza after over a year of violence in the strip.

Akel’s Yiorgos Loukaides said PACE’s “credibility and prestige” is beginning to be restored after it passed a resolution calling for a permanent ceasefire and “immediate humanitarian relief for the Palestinian people”.

“At a time when millions of people around the world, including many Jewish people, were demonstrating against the atrocities committed by the State of Israel against Palestinians and demanding an immediate ceasefire, the PACE had only adopted one motion, supporting a ceasefire only after the complete dismantling of Hamas,” he said.

He said that this condition “effectively called on Israel to continue its violent attacks”.

“A year later, it is a tragic fact that the ceasefire agreement was reached without any contribution whatsoever from the PACE,” he added.

He said that with the latest resolution passed on Wednesday constitutes “a starting point” which gives the PACE “the opportunity to chart a different path, based on the principles for which the Council of Europe advocates and with a commitment to the respect for international and humanitarian law”.

The CTP’s Armagan Candan also made an intervention on the matter of Gaza, saying the current ceasefire “must be sustainable” as “thousands of lives” have been lost in the violence which has befallen the region.

He added that the international community “must do its part for the reconstruction of Gaza”, and that both Israel and Palestine “must enter into a solution process which will recognise each other’s existence”.

The PACE’s resolution said it was “the military campaign launched by Israel in Gaza in response to the attack on October 7” which “caused an unimaginable humanitarian crisis”.

It welcomed the ceasefire, describing it as “a crucial and positive step forward”.

“The PACE cannot accept that this humanitarian crisis could be portrayed or seen as inevitable or be allowed to become ‘the new normal’,” it added, while also calling for the State of Israel to lift its ban on the United Nations relief and works agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).