Arab and Muslim leaders called on Israel to withdraw fully from Arab territories it has occupied since 1967 to achieve comprehensive regional peace, during a joint summit of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in the Saudi capital of Riyadh on Monday.
The summit’s closing statement said that “a just and comprehensive peace in the region cannot be achieved without ending the Israeli occupation of all occupied Arab territories to the line of June 4, 1967” – the West Bank and east Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights – and “in accordance with the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative” that offered Israel regional normalisation in return for Palestinian statehood.
The assembled leaders “condemn in the strongest terms” the Israeli army’s actions “in the context of the crime of genocide, especially in the northern Gaza Strip during the past weeks,” the summit’s closing statement said, citing torture, executions, disappearances and “ethnic cleansing”.
Arab and Muslim leaders also called on “all countries to ban the export of weapons and ammunition to Israel.”
The summit addressed ways to end Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Lebanon, describing the meeting as a continuation of a joint Arab-Islamic summit held in Riyadh last November, according to a statement from the Saudi Foreign Ministry.
