I come to Egypt at what everybody knows is a very precarious time in world affairs. It's a moment when conflict once again has brought human suffering to the fore. We see nightmares in the daytime on our television screen. We hear voices that are not actors but are humans, that are children that could be our own, and we are rewinding the horrors of the past.

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The stories and the accounts that I have heard in different parts of the world, whether it's in Bucha, in Ukraine, or in Darfur; or in the voices of the Rohingya in Myanmar, or the suffering that we see in Kabul, we see that these human markers of suffering are tragically more the norm than the exception. We see them time and time again in so many places.

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And it's in times like this, as I have consistently stated, since I became Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, that we need the law more than ever. Not the law in abstract terms, not the law as a theory for academicians, lawyers and judges. But we need to see justice in action. People need to see that the law has an impact on their lives. And this law, this justice, must be focused on the most vulnerable. It should be almost tangible. It is something they should be able to cling on to. It is something that they should be able to embrace when they are faced with so much loss, pain and suffering. . . . .

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. . . . . we have watched with horror the pictures emerging from Israel on the 7th of October. I think any of us that are parents or have children, any of us that have families, any of us that are alive, any of us that have love of God or love of humanity in our heart could not have helped feel their hearts chill on hearing the various accounts that came from so many innocent civilians in Israel whose lives were torn apart on that fateful day. And we simply cannot live in a world, we cannot leave a world for our children where burnings and executions and rapes and killings can take place as if they are normal, as if they are to be tolerated, as if they can happen without consequence. Children and men and women and the elderly can't be ripped from their homes and taken as hostages, whatever the reasons. And when these types of acts take place, they cannot go uninvestigated and they cannot go unpunished. Because these types of crimes that we've all been watching, that we saw on the 7th of October, are serious violations, if proven, of international humanitarian law. . . . .

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. . . . . Since the 7th of October, I really intensified my efforts to get in and access the locations where crimes were committed in Israel, to meet the families of those that are grieving, those that are living with fear, as if time has stood still at an acutely painful moment, waiting for their loved ones, worried, where are those hostages that were taken and praying for their return? And I've similarly made every effort to enter Gaza, but it has not been possible. In Gaza, I wanted to meet those who are suffering such tremendous pain, to hear their experiences firsthand, and very importantly, to promise to them, to give a commitment to them, that their birthright is justice. They own justice and they deserve justice as much as any other of God's creation deserves justice. . . . .

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. . . . . I think our shared humanity, our faith, our traditions, require us to remember and express condolences for the loss of so many. In Israel, those that have been buried, for those that are waiting for their loved ones to be returned and that same heart, those same filial relationships and those same bonds of blood, of family, of friendship apply in Gaza to those Palestinians suffering so profoundly - for the many that are being buried and for the so many futures that have already been cut short in this ugly conflict.

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It is really tragic, as we express our condolences, to have to ask what on earth is happening to this Holy Land of Israel and Palestine, whose very ground sheds tears at the blood of so many innocents that is being spilt?

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I'll end my remarks where I started, really, which must be to recall the gravity of this moment, the gravity of this situation. We should never think things cannot get worse. What we are seeing around the world today are these epicentres of violence, whether it's in Ukraine or in the Sahel, whether it's in what's happening in Darfur, the plight of the Rohingya, what's happening in Afghanistan. I think it really is a moment where we must cling to the law. It's our duty to do so. It's an imperative if we love our own children. We have to act because it is such a perilous moment.

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I fear that if we fail collectively to hear the call of our humanity, if we fail to listen to the reproaching soul of our hearts, to be better than we are, to be more just than we've been, to fight for things not based upon people's religion or tribe or nationality, their wealth or their poverty, but simply because we want to live in a world where there is equality so that we do not fall completely into the abyss. We want to live in a world where there is justice. We have to do better than we are doing right now. There are so many that are crying, and there are so many that are in pain. Collectively, the law and the quest for justice is essential to move out of the misery that we see all around us.

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Thank you so much for your time and for coming. Thank you so much.