By Global News Service
A joint Arab-Islamic summit held in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh on November 11, rejected Israeli claims that the war in Gaza was in “self-defense.” The participating members instead held Israel responsible for the “continuation and aggravation of the conflict” and “warned of the disastrous repercussions” for the state’s “war crime.”
The summit, originally scheduled as a meeting of the Arab League members, was later expanded into a joint summit with members of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC).
The 57 members of the OIC include 22 Arab countries, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, and several other Asian and African countries.
The joint communique issued after the meeting also reiterated the demand for an immediate end to the “barbaric, inhuman and brutal massacre by the colonial occupation government” in Gaza and an end to Israel’s “barbaric crimes committed also in the West Bank and Al-Quds Al-Sharif [East Jerusalem].”
The summit was called to discuss a joint response to the Israeli war in Gaza. Israel has been carrying out indiscriminate air strikes and land incursions in the besieged Palestinian territory since October 7. The offensive has killed more than 11,000 Palestinians, mostly children, women, and the elderly, and injured over 28,000.
Israeli attacks have displaced more than 70 percent of the 2.3 million population of Gaza, destroying residential buildings, hospitals, schools, shelters, and almost all of its civil infrastructure.
from the Peoples Dispatch / Globetrotter News Service