Day: November 11, 2023

Saudi Arabia is hosting an extraordinary summit on Saturday, bringing together countries from the Islamic and Arab worlds to discuss the worsening situation in Gaza.

Delivering the opening remarks, Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman called for an immediate cessation of military operations in Gaza and the release of all captives and prisoners.

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“This is a humanitarian catastrophe that has proved the failure of the international community and the UN Security Council to put an end to Israel’s gross violations of international humanitarian laws, and prove the dual standards adopted by the world,” he said.

“We are certain the only cause for peace is the end of the Israeli occupation and illegal settlements, and restoration of the established rights of the Palestinian people and the establishment of the state on 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital,” the Saudi crown prince added.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas highlighted that besides Gaza, Israeli forces’ raids in the occupied West Bank have also escalated and called on the US administration to put an end to “Israel’s aggression, the occupation, violation and desecration of our holy sites.”

“No military and security solutions are acceptable as they have all failed. We categorically reject any efforts to displace our people from Gaza or the West Bank,” President Abbas added.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry announced the news about the Summit late on Friday, saying the country was initially scheduled to host two summits, one of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and one of the Arab League, on Saturday. The joint summit emerged as a replacement after Saudi consulted with members of both large organisations.

According to the ministry, the joint meeting is 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.

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the President of Egypt emphasised that the policy of “collective punishment” by killing, siege and forcible transfer are unacceptable.

“This cannot be interpreted as self defence and must be stopped immediately,” he said and called for “an immediate sustainable ceasefire in Gaza.”

With Iran repeatedly warning that the scope of war will expand if Israel does not stop its attacks, President Ebrahim Raisi also attended the meeting in Riyadh, marking a first visit by an Iranian president in 11 years.

“Gaza is not an arena for words. It should be for action,” Raisi said before departing for Riyadh on Saturday, adding that the Palestinian issue has become the main issue not only for the Muslim world but the whole world.

“The atrocities that are now being committed by the Zionist regime in Gaza are clear examples of war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he said.

“The Americans say in their remarks and messages that they do not want the scope of the war to expand, but this claim in no way corresponds to their actions as the fuel for the Israeli war machine is provided by the Americans.”

Hold Israel ‘accountable’

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 strikes and ground assaults – which came in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas which killed 1,200 Israelis – have killed at least 11,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians.

Israel has significantly ramped up its attacks on hospitals in recent days, and the United Nations has said the lives of one million children in Gaza are “hanging on by a thread”.

The Arab League consists of 22 countries, including Syria, which was earlier this year accepted back after Arab leaders restarted talks with President Bashar al-Assad following a decade of civil war in the country.

The bloc’s assistant secretary-general, Hossam Zaki, said this week the organisation 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 extraordinary 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 Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman 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.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi addresses a Hamas solidarity rally in Tehran. Photo: Reuters/Sobhan Farajvan

Iran’s president will attend an emergency summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh on Sunday, in another sign of the rapprochement between the two rival Gulf states amid renewed conflict between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza.

Iranian regime media outlets reported on Friday that President Ebrahim Raisi will fly to Saudi Arabia for Sunday’s meeting, which will address “ways to stop Israel’s savage war machine against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip,” according to Iran’s official English language broadcaster Press TV.

Raisi’s announcement of his trip to Riyadh came as the regime’s “supreme leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, launched another attack on US support for Israel in its military response to the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in which more than 1,400 people were murdered and more than 200 seized as hostages. Iran is the main international sponsor of Hamas.

“Since the very first days of the Zionist regime’s attacks, all the evidence and indications show the direct involvement of the Americans in running the war,” Khamenei declared on Friday.

The OIC summit will include Arab states that signed historic peace deals with Israel in 2020, among them the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. While Saudi Arabia still resists diplomatic relations with Israel, rumors of a peace deal brokered by the US administration were widespread in the weeks prior to the Hamas onslaught, with some observers arguing that derailing the rapprochement between Jerusalem and Riyadh by sparking a new war was a key reason behind the Oct. 7 atrocities.

Additionally, Arab Gulf states are “very worried that they’re going to be targeted by Iranian proxy groups who are seeking retaliation against Israel and the United States,” Elham Fakhro of the London-based Chatham House think tank told a panel discussion at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, DC, on Thursday.

One Saudi political analyst predicted that Sunday’s OIC meeting would demonstrate the support for the Palestinians beyond the Arab world, drawing in Muslim states in Africa and Asia.

“Non-Western countries are not accepting this any longer and not buying the American narrative, the Western narrative of the conflict,” Aziz Alghashian told broadcaster France 24.