Libreville, March 5, 2024 (AGP) – The Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Hissein Brahim Taha, called on all countries to increase funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), so that it can continue to play a vital role in providing humanitarian and essential services to Palestinian refugees, and contribute to strengthening stability in the region, we learn of the Union of OIC News Agencies.
Secretary-General Hissein Brahim Taha said the increase in funding for UNRWA would confirm the international community’s commitment to protecting the rights of Palestinian refugees and its responsibility to provide a just solution to their problem.
According to him, the meeting is being held in light of the escalation of the ongoing Israeli aggression, which violates all international laws and norms and commits horrific massacres, war crimes and crimes against humanity, the latest of which latest has been the targeting of hundreds of civilians as they waited to receive food aid.
Noting that these crimes have so far cost the lives of more than 30,000 Palestinian civilians, injured nearly seventy thousand people, mostly women and children, and displaced nearly two million Palestinians interior of the Gaza Strip.
Hissein Brahim Taha stressed that the Israeli occupation persists in its systematic policy based on famine, torture, arrests, murders, displacements and indiscriminate destruction of infrastructure, housing, mosques, churches, hospitals, schools, universities, United Nations institutions, historic buildings and economic facilities in the context of the genocide and the attempt to uproot the Palestinian people from their land.
Not without thanking the participants in the extraordinary session, which has essential political connotations, in particular the emphasis placed on the central place of the Palestinian question. He also thanked the Member States who called for this meeting to strengthen and coordinate the efforts undertaken by the OIC in implementing the resolution of the Extraordinary Arab-Islamic Summit hosted by Saudi Arabia in Riyadh on November 11, 2023. .
The Secretary General also indicated the activation of the media monitoring unit established under the Summit resolution by launching a window on the OIC website which publishes all media materials. It also began coordination with Member States to activate the legal observatory set up within the framework of the Summit resolution, by forming an internal monitoring committee.
Mr. Hissein Taha explained that the General Secretariat, together with 25 Member States, submitted written information to the International Court of Justice and participated in the pleadings which took place from February 19 to 26, 2024, regarding the legal consequences arising from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land since 1967 and its continued violation of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.
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