The extraordinary Arab-Islamic Summit convened on Saturday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, issued a resounding call for an immediate cessation of Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, the lifting of the siege on Gaza, and the swift delivery of essential humanitarian aid. The summit further urged the United Nations Security Council to take decisive, binding action that would compel an end to the aggression and curtail the actions of the occupying authority, deeming any inaction as complicity enabling continued brutal aggression.
In the final statement, presented by Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud during a joint press conference with Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, and Hussein Ibrahim Taha, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the summit vehemently condemned the war crimes and savage, inhumane massacres perpetrated by the colonial occupation government. The summit categorically rejected any attempts to justify this aggression against the Gaza Strip under any pretext.
Emphasizing the imperative of breaking the siege on Gaza and facilitating the immediate entry of Arab, Islamic, and international humanitarian aid convoys, including provisions such as food, medicine, and fuel, the summit called upon international organizations to actively participate in this endeavour. Additionally, it underscored the importance of these organizations gaining access to Gaza while safeguarding their personnel.
Furthermore, the summit called on all nations to cease the export of weapons and ammunition to the occupying authorities, which are employed by their military and extremist settlers to inflict harm upon the Palestinian people and devastate their homes, hospitals, schools, places of worship, and all their vital infrastructure.
Below is the full text of the final statement (as published by SANA – Verbatim):
We, the leaders of the states and governments of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the League of Arab States, decided to merge the two summits that both the Organization and the League had decided to organize, in response to calls from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (the current presidency of the two summits) and from the State of Palestine, and as an expression of our unified position in condemning the brutal Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people. in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including al-Quds, and in confirmation that we confront together this aggression and the humanitarian catastrophe it causes, and we work to stop it and end all illegal Israeli practices that perpetuate the occupation and deprive the Palestinian people of their rights, especially their right to freedom and an independent state with full sovereignty, and as we welcome UN General Assembly Resolution which was adopted by the tenth emergency session on October 26 of the current year 2023, and as we affirm the centrality of the Palestinian cause and our standing with all our capabilities alongside the brotherly Palestinian people in their legitimate struggle and effort to liberate all their lands. occupied and to fulfill all its inalienable rights, especially its right to self-determination and to live in its independent, sovereign state along the lines of June 4, 1967, with Al-Quds as its capital, we affirm that Israel and all countries of the region will not enjoy security and peace unless the Palestinians enjoy them and regain all their stolen rights, and that the continuation of the Israeli occupation is a threat to the security and stability of the region and to international peace and security, we condemn all forms of hatred and discrimination and all proposals that perpetuate a culture, we declare the following:
– Condemning the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, the war crimes, and the barbaric and inhuman massacres committed by the colonial occupation government during it, and demanding the need to emphasize their immediate cessation, against the Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
We reject describing this war of revenge as self-defence or justifying it under any pretext.
– Breaking the siege on Gaza and imposing the immediate entry of Arab, Islamic and international humanitarian aid convoys, including food, medicine and fuel into the Gaza Strip, inviting international organizations to participate in this process, stressing the necessity of these organizations to enter the Gaza Strip, protecting their crews and enabling them to fully carry out their role, and supporting United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
– Supporting all steps taken by Egypt to confront the consequences of the brutal Israeli aggression on Gaza, and supporting its efforts to bring aid into the Gaza Strip in an immediate, sustainable and adequate manner.
– Demanding the Security Council to take a decisive and binding decision that imposes a cessation of aggression and curbs the colonial occupation authority that violates international law, international humanitarian law, and international legitimacy resolutions, the latest of which is UN General Assembly Resolution dated 10/26/2023, and considering failure to do so as complicity that allows Israel continues its brutal aggression that kills innocent people, children, the elderly, and women, and turns Gaza into ruin.
– Demanding all countries to stop exporting weapons and ammunition to the occupation authorities that are used by their army and terrorist settlers to kill the Palestinian people and destroy their homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, churches and all their capabilities.
Demanding the Security Council to take an immediate decision condemning Israel’s barbaric destruction of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, preventing the entry of medicine, food and fuel into it, and cutting off electricity, water, and basic services there, including communication and Internet services, as collective punishment that represents a war crime in accordance with international law.
– Requesting the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to complete the investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel against the Palestinian people in all the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem, and assigning the general secretariats of the organization and the League to follow up on the implementation of this, and establishing two specialized legal monitoring units to document the Israeli crimes committed in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023.
– Supporting the legal and political initiatives of the State of Palestine to hold officials of the Israeli occupation authorities responsible for their crimes against the Palestinian people, including the advisory opinion process of the International Court of Justice, and allowing the investigation committee established by the Human Rights Council resolution to investigate these crimes and not obstruct them.
Assigning the two secretariats to establish two media watch units to document all the crimes of the occupation authorities against the Palestinian people and digital media platforms that publish them and expose their illegal and inhuman practices.
– Assigning the foreign ministers of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in its capacity as the presidency of the 32nd Arab and Islamic Summit, and each of Jordan – Egypt – Qatar – Turkey – Indonesia – and Nigeria, and the secretaries-general of the two organizations to initiate immediate international action on behalf of all member states of the organization and the League to formulate an international action to stop the war on Gaza and pressure to launch a serious and real political process to achieve lasting and comprehensive peace in accordance with approved international references.
– Calling on the member states of the organization and the League to exercise diplomatic, political and legal pressure and take any deterrent measures to stop the crimes of the colonial occupation authorities against humanity.
Denouncing the double standards in applying international law, and warning that this duality seriously undermines the credibility of countries that protect Israel from international law and place it above the law.
Condemning the displacement of about one and a half million Palestinians from the north of the Gaza Strip to its south, as a war crime in accordance with the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and its 1977 annex.
– Complete and absolute rejection and collective response to any attempts at individual or collective forced transfer, forced displacement, exile or deportation of the Palestinian people, whether inside the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, including Jerusalem, or outside its territory to any other destination whatever, considering this a red line and a war crime.
– Condemning the killing and targeting of civilians, a principled position based on our humanitarian values and consistent with international law and international humanitarian law, and emphasizing the need for the international community to take immediate and rapid steps to stop the killing and targeting of Palestinian civilians,
– Emphasizing the need to release all prisoners, detainees and civilians, and condemning the abhorrent crimes committed by the colonial occupation authorities against thousands of Palestinian prisoners.
– Stopping the murders committed by the occupation forces, the terrorism of settlers and their crimes in Palestinian villages, cities and camps in the occupied West Bank, and all attacks on the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and all Islamic and Christian sanctities.
– Emphasizing the need for Israel to implement its obligations as the occupying power, and to stop all illegal Israeli measures that perpetuate the occupation, especially the construction and expansion of settlements, the confiscation of lands, and the displacement of Palestinians from their homes.
Condemning the military operations launched by the occupation forces against Palestinian cities and camps, condemning settler terrorism, and calling on the international community to place their associations and organizations on international terrorism lists, so that the Palestinian people can enjoy all the rights enjoyed by the rest of the peoples of the world, including human rights, the right to security, self-determination, and the embodiment of independence. Their state is on their land, and an international protection mechanism is provided for them.
Condemning the Israeli attacks on the Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, and Israel’s illegal measures that violate freedom of worship, and emphasizing the necessity of respecting the existing legal and historical status in the holy sites, and that the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, with its entire area of 144 thousand square meters, is a place of worship purely for Muslims only, and that the Jordanian Department of the Jerusalem Endowments and the Affairs of the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque is the exclusive legal authority with jurisdiction to manage the Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, maintain it, and regulate access to it, within the framework of the historical Hashemite custodianship of the Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, and to support the role of the presidency of the Al-Quds Committee and its efforts in confronting the practices of the occupation authorities in Holy city.
Condemning the extremist and racist actions and statements of hatred by ministers in the Israeli occupation government, including the threat of one of these ministers to use nuclear weapons against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
Condemning the killing of journalists, children, and women, targeting paramedics, and the use of internationally banned white phosphorus in the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, condemning the repeated Israeli statements and threats to return Lebanon to the Stone Age, the necessity of preventing the expansion of the conflict, and calling on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to investigate Israel’s use of chemical weapons.
– Emphasizing that the Palestine Liberation Organization is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and calling on the Palestinian factions and forces to unite under its umbrella, and for everyone to bear their responsibilities in light of a national partnership led by the Palestine Liberation Organization.
– Reaffirming adherence to peace as a strategic option, to end the Israeli occupation and resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict in accordance with international law and relevant international legitimacy resolutions.
– Emphasizing the need for the international community to move immediately to launch a serious and real peace process to impose peace on the basis of a two-state solution that meets all the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people
– Emphasizing the failure to find a solution to the Palestinian issue for more than 75 years, and the failure to address the crimes of the Israeli colonial occupation and its systematic policies to undermine the two-state solution through building and expanding colonial settlements, as well as some parties’ unconditional support for the Israeli occupation and protecting it from accountability, and refusing to listen, the continuous warnings about the danger of ignoring these crimes and their dangerous effects on the future of international peace and security are what led to a serious deterioration of the situation.
Rejecting any proposals that would establish the separation of Gaza from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
– Calling for the convening of an international peace conference, as soon as possible, through which a credible peace process will be launched on the basis of international law, international legitimacy resolutions and the principle of land for peace, within a specific time frame and with international guarantees that will lead to an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, the occupied Syrian Golan, the Shebaa Farms, the Kafr Shuba hills and the outskirts of the Lebanese town of al-Mari.
– Activating the Islamic financial safety net in accordance with the resolution of the 14th session of the Islamic Summit Conference, to provide financial contributions and provide financial, economic and humanitarian support to the government of the State of Palestine and UNRWA, and to emphasize the need to mobilize international partners to reconstruct Gaza and mitigate the effects of the comprehensive destruction of the Israeli aggression as soon as it stops.
Assigning the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States and the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to follow up on the implementation of the resolution and present a report on it to the next session of their councils.
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
