The emergency meeting between the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) comes after deadly attacks by Hamas militants on October 7, which Israeli officials say killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 240 hostage.
After these attacks, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a military campaign in the Gaza Strip.
According to the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian territories controlled by Hamas, more than 11,000 people were killed in the enclave during Israeli retaliatory strikes. people, including mostly civilians.
An Israeli medical non-governmental organization said on Saturday that two premature babies had died after electricity was cut off at the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip. As fighting continues around Dar al Shifa hospital, its neonatal intensive care unit is out of service, putting another 37 babies at risk, Physicians for Human Rights Israel said.
Saudi Arabia, which is hosting a Middle East summit, affirms that it holds Israel responsible for crimes against Palestinians, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of the Gulf kingdom said at the start of the meeting. in fact manager.
“We are sure that the only way to ensure security, peace and stability in the region is to end the occupation, the cloak and the settlements,” he said, referring to Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who is visiting Saudi Arabia for the first time since the two countries normalized relations in March, called on the governments of Islamic countries to declare Israel’s military a terrorist organization, citing its current offensive operations in the Gaza Strip.
Israel blames the high death toll on Hamas, which it says is using civilians as human shields. Hamas denies this.
Differences in positions
The Arab League and the 57-member OIC, of which Iran is a member, were originally scheduled to hold separate meetings.
Arab diplomats told AFP that the decision to combine the two meetings came after Arab League delegations failed to agree on a final statement.
Some countries, including Algeria and Lebanon, have offered to threaten to disrupt oil supplies to Israel and its allies and cut economic and diplomatic ties with Israel by some Arab League countries in response to the devastation in the Gaza Strip, the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
But at least three countries, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, which normalized relations with Israel in the 2020s, rejected the offer, they said.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said the meeting would be ineffective without specific punitive measures against Israel.
“If we don’t have real tools of pressure, any move or word we make will have no meaning,” said al-Assad, who was readmitted to the Arab League this year after a long dispute over his country’s civil war.
According to him, no Middle Eastern country should pursue any political process with Israel, including the development of economic relations, until a lasting truce is reached.
Israel and its main backer Washington reject demands for a ceasefire. On Saturday, this position was strongly criticized.
“The US has prevented a cease-fire in Gaza [Ruože] and expands the scope of the war,” Raisi said before leaving Tehran.
At the summit, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called it a shame that “Western countries that keep talking about human rights and freedoms are silent about the massacres in Palestine.”
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said that Washington can exert the greatest influence on Israel and is responsible for the fact that there is no political solution to this conflict.
Iranian President in Riyadh
Among the participants of the Riyadh meeting were Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, who called for “deterrent steps to stop the war crime in the Gaza Strip.”
E. Raisi is the first Iranian president to visit Saudi Arabia since 2012, when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attended the OIC meeting held in the kingdom.
In addition to speaking at the summit, Raisi also spoke face-to-face with Prince Mohammed, Saudi media reported on the X social network. It is their first meeting since March, when the two Middle Eastern powers agreed to mend relations.
Iran supports Hamas, the Lebanese group Hezbollah, and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, so there are fears that the war could spread, especially for Tehran.
The conflict between Israel and Hamas has already seen clashes between the Israeli army and Hezbollah across the border, and the Houthis have claimed responsibility for what they say is the launch of ballistic missiles into southern Israel.
Analysts say Saudi Arabia fears possible attacks because it maintains close ties with Washington and considered normalizing relations with Israel before the war.
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2024-09-22 11:05:10
