to report «iusnews»; An Arab-Islamic summit hosted by Saudi Arabia called for an end to the war in Gaza and rejected justifying Israel’s actions against Palestinians as self-defence.
The summit on Saturday condemned “Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, war crimes and barbaric and inhumane massacres by the occupation government”, a final communique said, Al-Jazeera reported.
It also called for an end to the siege on Gaza, allowing humanitarian aid into the enclave and halting arms exports to Israel, following the meeting in Riyadh.
The leaders demanded that the UN Security Council adopt “a decisive and binding resolution” to halt Israel’s “aggression” in Gaza.
Originally, only the 22 members of the Arab League were expected to participate, but the meeting was later expanded to include the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a wider association of 57 mostly Muslim-majority states to which the Arab League countries belong.
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the joint Arab League and OIC meeting was being held “in response to the exceptional circumstances taking place in the Palestinian Gaza Strip as countries feel the need to unify efforts and come out with a unified collective position”.
The OIC includes member states from across the Islamic world, including the Palestinian territories’ neighbours Egypt and Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq.
Israel has not relented in its attacks on the Gaza Strip despite increasing calls for an immediate ceasefire, especially from the Arab and Islamic worlds.
The non-stop air raids and ground assaults – which came in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas which killed about 1,200 Israelis – have killed more than 11,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians.
Israel has significantly ramped up its attacks on hospitals in recent days, and the UN has said the lives of one million children in Gaza are “hanging on by a thread”.
The bloc’s Assistant Secretary-General Hossam Zaki said this week that it aims to demonstrate “how the Arabs will move on the international scene to stop the aggression, support Palestine and its people, condemn the Israeli occupation, and hold it accountable for its crimes”.
The joint summit comes amid a flurry of diplomatic activity across the region and beyond. Saudi Arabia had hosted an African-Saudi summit in Riyadh on Friday, where MbS called for an end to the war.
Leaders of Russia, Iran, Turkey and Pakistan convened in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana on Thursday for talks that included the situation in Gaza.
