This content was published on November 11, 2023 – 11:44 July, November 11, 2023 – 11:44
From Aziz Al-Yaqoubi
RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia will host leaders of Arab and Islamic countries on Saturday in an unusual joint summit in Riyadh, as the kingdom seeks to pressure the United States and Israel to end hostilities in Gaza.
Dozens of leaders, including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, are attending the summit, which is expected to strongly denounce the Israeli campaign in Gaza and call for an end to the forced displacement of Palestinians in the Strip.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was welcomed back to the Arab League earlier this year, are also participating in the summit.
Raisi said on Saturday that it was time to do something about the conflict in Gaza instead of talking, as he headed to Saudi Arabia to attend the summit.
Raisi added at Tehran airport before departure, “Gaza is not an arena for words. It must be an arena for action.” He also said, “Today, the unity of Islamic countries is very important.”
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Friday, “We condemn the military aggression witnessed in the Gaza Strip, the targeting of civilians, and the continued violations of international and humanitarian law by the Israeli occupation authority.”
The Middle East region has been witnessing a state of tension since the fighters of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) invaded Israel on October 7. Israel says this attack killed 1,200 people.
Since then, Israel has escalated its attacks on Gaza, with 11,078 residents of the Strip killed as of yesterday, Friday, 40 percent of whom were children, according to Palestinian officials.
The fighting escalated overnight near crowded Gaza City hospitals, which Palestinian officials said were hit by explosions and gunfire.
The war turned traditional alliances in the Middle East upside down, as Riyadh dealt more closely with Iran, rejected American pressure to denounce Hamas, and froze its plans to normalize relations with Israel.
Raisi’s visit to Saudi Arabia is the first by an Iranian president since Tehran and Riyadh ended years of hostility under a Chinese-brokered agreement in March.
Saudi Arabia was scheduled to host two extraordinary summits, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit and the Arab League summit, on Saturday and Sunday.
The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the extraordinary joint Arab-Islamic summit will replace the two meetings and that it comes “in response to the exceptional circumstances taking place in Gaza.”
The statement added, “This comes as the leaders of all countries sense the importance of unifying efforts and coming up with a unified collective position that expresses the common Arab-Islamic will regarding the dangerous and unprecedented developments that Gaza and the Palestinian territories are witnessing.”
The statement stated that this decision was taken after the Kingdom’s consultation with the League of Arab States and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Two delegates told Reuters that the Arab foreign ministers who held an emergency meeting on Thursday to prepare for the summit were divided, as some countries, led by Algeria, called for the severing of all diplomatic relations with Israel.
The two delegates added that a group of Arab countries, which established diplomatic relations with Israel, opposed this, stressing the need to keep channels open with the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu.
(Reporting by Moaz Abdel Aziz from Cairo – Prepared by Marwa Salam and Amira Zahran for the Arab Bulletin – Editing by Rehab Alaa)
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2023-11-11 10:44:34