Syria says to join with Turkey in sending aid to Gaza

The two leaders also agreed, in a telephone call, to work towards pressuring Israel to end the blockade of the impoverished Palestinian enclave which it imposed when the Islamist Hamas movement seized power in June last year, the Al-Baath newspaper said.

Israel tightened its blockade after a November 4 surge in violence and has allowed food into Gaza only three times since. The border crossings which are the sole gateway for goods for the territory’s 1.5 million people were closed again on Thursday.

Assad and Erdogan agreed to "work towards sending humanitarian aid urgently to the Palestinian people in Gaza and affirmed the need for combined international efforts to break the blockade," the paper said.

They also expressed their "deep concern over the suffering being endured by the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, who face a humanitarian catastrophe because of the blockade."

Al-Baath did not specify how the two governments plan to send aid to Gaza.

Syria remains technically at a state of war with Israel despite a 1974 armistice and the opening of Turkish-brokered proximity talks on a resumption of formal peace negotiations.

Pro-Western Egypt and Jordan are the only two Arab governments to have signed peace treaties with the Jewish state.