Riyadh, 11 Nov 2023 (QNA/Anadolu/South China Morning Post)
The joint Arab-Islamic summit on Saturday urged the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to "complete investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel against Palestinians."
In a communique copy of which was received by Anadolu, the summit also called on the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to investigate Israel's “use of chemical weapons.”
Earlier, leaders and representatives of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation participated in an emergency joint Arab-Islamic summit held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital. The summit coincides with the ongoing Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip for the 36th day.
The summit "strongly" condemned “the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip and the war crimes and barbaric, brutal, and inhuman massacres committed by the colonial occupation government during this aggression, and against the Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem,” according to the communique.
It said that the leaders affirmed that Israel and other countries in the region “will not enjoy security, peace unless Palestinians enjoy security, peace, regain all their usurped rights.”
They rejected “describing this retaliatory war as self-defense or justifying it under any pretext and demand to stop immediately.”
The summit called on all countries to “stop exporting weapons and ammunitions 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 properties,” the communique said.
It also called for an end to Israeli settlement expansion, emphasized the importance of the Arab Peace Initiative, and denounced "double standards" in applying international law.
The leaders concluded by calling for “convening international peace conference, as soon as possible through which credible peace process will be launched" under international law and for activating the Islamic Financial Safety Net to “provide financial contributions and financial, economic and humanitarian support to the Government of the State of Palestine and to UNRWA.”
Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip – including hospitals, residences, and houses of worship – since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas on Oct. 7.
Dozens of leaders including Pakistan's Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar; Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi; Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan; Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani; and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad; who was welcomed back into the Arab League earlier this year, attended the meeting.
Prince Mohammed said the kingdom affirms its “condemnation and categorical rejection of this barbaric war against our brothers in Palestine”.
“We are facing a humanitarian catastrophe that proves the failure of the Security Council and the international community to put an end to the flagrant Israeli violations of international laws,” he said in an address to the summit.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Palestinians are facing a “genocidal war” and called on the US to end Israeli “aggression”.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar in his address suggested that the Arab and Islamic countries should explore the possibility of initiating proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel for its war crimes and crimes against humanity under the Genocide Convention and under the interim measures request.
He said that the UN Secretary General could be requested to establish a special commission of inquiry to investigate Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity since October 7.
Kakar further said that they should also demand establishing of the international mechanism and call for halt to illegal settlements by Israel.
He said that permanent solution to the conflict was in the establishment of a secure, viable, contiguous and sovereign state of Palestine on the basis of pre-June 1967 borders with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its Capital and urged upon the Muslim countries to work towards that end.
“We call for a political solution for which it is imperative that conditions are created for a dialogue between the Palestinians and Israel to evolve a way forward through the two-state solution,” he reiterated.
IRNA reports that President Raisi said that “Now that the international assemblies under the influence of America are suffering from indecisiveness, characterlessness, and the lack of identity, we must take the field".
Calling the atrocities of the usurping Zionist regime in recent weeks a historical shame for morality, law and humanity, President Raisi stressed the main role of the US in such crimes, as well as the reminder of the responsibility of the Arab and Islamic countries towards the issue of Palestine and the oppressed people of Gaza.
He presented 10 urgent solutions and suggestions for making decisive decisions for the benefit of the Palestinian nation, including "stopping the killing of the people of Gaza", "completely lifting the human blockade of Gaza", "The immediate military withdrawal of the Zionist regime from this region", "The termination of any political and economic relations with the Zionist regime by Islamic countries", "The establishment of an international court to prosecute and punish the Zionist and American criminal leaders", "Establishment of a special fund for the immediate reconstruction of Gaza with the acceptance of Islamic countries" and "sending a convoy of ships carrying humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people from Islamic countries".
Raisi’s trip to Saudi Arabia is the first by an Iranian head of state in more than a decade. Tehran and Riyadh ended years of hostility under a Chinese-brokered deal in March.
Erdogan called for an international peace conference to find a permanent solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestinians.
“What we need in Gaza is not pauses for a couple of hours, rather we need a permanent ceasefire,” Erdogan told the summit.
Amir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani said his country is seeking to mediate the release of Israeli hostages and hopes a humanitarian truce would be reached soon.
“For how long will the international community treat Israel as if it is above international laws,” he said.
Some countries, including Algeria and Lebanon, proposed responding to the devastation in Gaza by threatening to disrupt oil supplies to Israel and its allies as well as severing the economic and diplomatic ties that some Arab League nations have with Israel, the diplomats said.
However, at least three countries – including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which normalised ties with Israel in 2020 – rejected the proposal, according to the diplomats who spoke on condition on anonymity.
Hamas had called on the summit to take “a historic and decisive decision and move to stop the Zionist aggression immediately”.
“We call on Arab and Muslim leaders … to put pressure on the American administration, which bears direct responsibility in the genocidal war that our people are facing in the Gaza Strip,” a statement from the Palestinian militant group said
The Amir of State of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani participated in the ExtraordinaryJoint Arab-Islamic Summit, held at the King Abdul Aziz International Conference Center, Riyadh today.
Following is the speech delivered by Amir of State Of Qatar :
In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
Your Majesties, Highnesses and Excellencies,
May Peace, Mercy and Blessings of God be upon you,
At the beginning, I extend my thanks for the blessed efforts of the sisterly Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, led by the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, and His Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, for this summit, which comes at a crucial time in the history of our region.
Our summit is being convened today while our Palestinian brothers in the Gaza Strip are bearing the brunt of the atrocities of the Israeli war machine in a way beyond human tolerance. The international community has failed to shoulder its legal and moral responsibilities and take whatever action necessary to stop war crimes and massacres committed in the name of self-defence, and to put an end to this war of aggression.
As our hearts break with pain at the sight of the mass killing of children, women, and the elderly, and the human suffering, we wonder how long will the international community continue to treat Israel as if it is above international law, and how long will it be condoned to flout all international laws in its brutal, never-ending war on the country’s indigenous population?
What is happening in Gaza constitutes a threat at every level, and even at the level of wars of aggression there are precedents which are being recorded. How did bombing hospitals become a normal thing? At first it is denied and the victims are accused, then it is justified by the existence of tunnels underneath these places, then it becomes something that does not need to be justified after feelings become blunted and eyes become acclimated to seeing tragedies. These are unparalleled things. We found in this war or before it, during the siege of Gaza, a noticeable increase in the levels of immunity among some countries that claim to protect international law and the world order. We have seen their immunity to the scenes of indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians, whether children or women, as well as the bombing of hospitals and shelters, no longer affecting them, and their levels of immunity have reached the point of seeing the bodies of innocent people being eaten by dogs, and these countries do not do anything. Glory be to God, the strength of immunity is only against our Palestinian brothers.
By allowing their justification, the international system fails itself before it fails us. Who would have imagined that hospitals would be openly bombed in the twenty-first century, and that entire families would be erased from the records by the indiscriminate bombing of residential neighbourhoods and refugee camps, and that an entire people would be forcibly displaced with deplored and unacceptable plans to displace them. All this unfolds in full view of the world. This is coupled with blatant racist statements by Israeli leaders that are not denounced by their allied countries’ leaders.
The State of Qatar is unflinching in its historical position in support of the steadfastness of the brotherly Palestinian people and their just cause. We continue, with our partners in the region and the international community, to provide humanitarian aid and work to expedite its delivery to those in need, despite continuous Israeli intransigence to hinder it. In this regard, we demand that safe humanitarian corridors be permanently opened to allow for an unhindered and unconditional delivery of aid to those affected and afflicted. We categorically reject the use of arbitrariness in providing humanitarian aid and threatening to bomb it as a means of pressure and political extorsion. We stress the need to make this aid accessible to all parts of the Gaza Strip. This is the weakest level of faith, and the least that we can all do.
We are also continuing to support all regional and international diplomatic efforts for de-escalation, stemming the bloodshed, and protecting civilians, including making efforts in humanitarian mediation to release the hostages. We hope to reach a humanitarian truce in the near future to spare the Strip from further worsening of the humanitarian catastrophe that has befallen it.
We reiterate our firm position to condemn all forms of targeting civilians, regardless of their ethnic, religious or national background. We also condemn in the strongest possible terms the targeting of health and educational facilities and justify this with groundless allegations. In this context, we demand that the United Nations send international teams to immediately investigate the Israeli allegations and claims used to justify the bombing of hospitals, although there is no justification for such a crime.
Honourable audience,
You all know the position and feelings of our people regarding what is happening, and there is no need to elaborate on the matter. Difference over this or that issue should not be a justification for disagreement over taking a firm stance vis-a-vis the ongoing crime in Gaza, nor should we be satisfied with denunciation and condemnation statements. Rather, we must take deterrent steps to stop the ongoing war crime, in a way that will also project the weight and leverage of Islamic states. Israel's continuation of its aggression and committing crimes of genocide with such recklessness will not harm only Arab and Islamic national security, but also the national security of our countries.
In conclusion, we stress that the only sustainable solution to this issue is the one that establishes the foundations of justice in accordance with the resolutions of international legitimacy and the Arab Peace Initiative, and this is the solution that the international community have called for, and which we adhere to out of our conviction in the right of the Palestinian people to enjoy goodness and well-being and the right to self-determination concerning its independent state. And because we believe that the Israeli plans in the aftermath of this criminal war are a repetition of its colonial policies that have thwarted all peace initiatives and even agreements and led to all these crises. The basic thing is that it refuses to recognize the rights of the Palestinian people, and only thinks about security arrangements while continuing the colonialist mentality and its practices towards the indigenous people. The international community's failure to oblige Israel to stop the ongoing crime during our meeting is a license to continue this disastrous approach.
May Peace, Mercy and Blessings of God be upon you, (End).
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