DOHA: In line with the State of Qatar's steadfast and continuous support for the Palestinian cause and the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani will participate in the extraordinary Arab-Islamic summit scheduled to take place on Monday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The summit comes in response to the recent surge of Israeli aggression in Palestine and Lebanon, prompting Arab and Islamic leaders to convene and discuss measures to halt the attacks, protect civilians, and support the Palestinian and Lebanese people. The summit aims to unify positions and press the international community to take concrete action to end the ongoing hostilities and secure long-term peace and stability in the region.
The State of Qatar has consistently voiced its commitment to defending the Palestinian people against acts of ethnic cleansing and remains at the forefront of Arab, Islamic, and international efforts to prevent the erasure of the Palestinian cause and the forced displacement of Gaza residents.
In his speech at the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September, HH the Amir emphasized that the aggression faced by the Palestinian people in Gaza is among the most brutal and egregious violations of human values, international covenants, and norms, stressing that this is not a war within the international relations well-known and common concept of war, but rather a crime of genocide by means of using the most sophisticated weapons against a people besieged in a detention camp where there is no escape from the barrage of aerial bombing.
HH the Amir added, "We oppose violence and the targeting of innocent civilians by any party, but after a year of the war, and with all that has been and is still being perpetrated in it, it is no longer tenable to talk about Israel's right to defend itself in this context without being complicit in justifying the crime.
"It is no longer plausible for any official to claim that he does not know, thanks to the well-known facts and reports issued by international organizations about the bombing of schools and hospitals and weaponizing access to food and medicine, in addition to the published and publicly uttered intentions of Israeli leaders. Therefore, the failure to intervene to stop the aggression is a major scandal." In his speech at the First European Union-Gulf Cooperation Council Summit in Brussels in October, HH the Amir stressed that the devastating ongoing war waged by Israel on Palestinian territories and Lebanon, where war crimes have become a horrifying routine amid a lack of international accountability, underscores the urgent need for a comprehensive resolution to the conflict based on a just solution to the Palestinian cause, grounded in international legitimacy resolutions, and should include a full withdrawal from the Arab territories occupied in 1967, with the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, existing alongside the State of Israel.
HH the Amir called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, as well as an end to settler provocations backed by the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank.
His Highness praised the role of European nations that have taken a stance against the crimes committed by Israel against civilians and have supported the Palestinian people's right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent state, expressing hope for an even greater European role in fostering international consensus on the two-state solution, transitioning from words to action through a reliable and irreversible path toward establishing an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders.
The upcoming summit on Monday builds on the resolutions from the previous Arab-Islamic summit, held in Riyadh on Nov. 11, 2023. Those resolutions included condemnation of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, the war crimes, and the barbaric, savage, and inhuman massacres committed by the colonial occupation government, demanding halting them immediately, and categorically rejecting the characterization of these retaliatory war as acts of self-defense or justification under any pretext. The summit called for breaking the siege on Gaza, imposing the entry of humanitarian aid convoys, and supporting the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).The Joint Arab-Islamic Summit also urged the Security Council to take a decisive and binding decision to impose a halt to the aggression and curb its escalation, in addition to urging all countries to stop exporting weapons and ammunition to the occupation authorities and denouncing the double standards in the application of international law.The Summit decided to assign the Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, in its capacity as the presidency of the 32nd Arab and Islamic Summit, along with counterparts from Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Palestine, and any other interested countries, and the Secretary-General of both organizations to initiate immediate international action on behalf of all member states of the OIC and the Arab League to formulate an international move to halt the war in Gaza and to pressure for a real and serious political process to achieve permanent and comprehensive peace in accordance with established international references.
In the implementation of the decisions of the Extraordinary Joint Arab-Islamic Summit, the ministerial committee assigned by the summit began its meetings with a number of leaders and officials from countries around the world. During their meetings and tours, the committee members stressed the importance of immediately halting the military escalation and the forced displacement of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, securing safe corridors for the entry of urgent humanitarian, food, and medical aid, and reviving the peace process in accordance with international resolutions, in a way that guarantees the rights of the Palestinian people and the establishment of their independent state, with East Jerusalem as its capital.
In its meetings, the Ministerial Committee completely rejected the war waged by the Israeli occupation authorities against the concept of the two-state solution, against self-determination, freedom, independence, and the Palestinian presence on the land of the State of Palestine. The committee stressed that the Israeli occupation has committed all kinds of crimes against the Palestinian people, including cutting off water and electricity and preventing freedom of movement, travel, and decent living.
The committee stressed the need to revive the peace process and the importance of ensuring a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace by implementing international resolutions related to the two-state solution and enabling the Palestinian people to obtain their legitimate rights to establish an independent and sovereign Palestinian state on the lines of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital.Over the past 78 years, the Arab League has held 45 summits, 33 of which were regular and 12 were emergency, in addition to 4 economic development summits, in which the Palestinian issue was an important focus of their meetings. The Qatari capital, Doha, hosted three Arab summits that took several important stances on the Palestinian issue, including an emergency summit held in January 2009, called the "Gaza Summit," which called for the establishment of a fund to rebuild Gaza and to stop all forms of normalization with the Israeli entity.
On the Islamic level, Palestine and Jerusalem have always been the central issue of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and the source of its unity, strength, and joint action. It is the subject of consensus among the member states, which are striving to end the Israeli occupation and obtain the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, in addition to the OIC's undertaking of the mission of defending the issues of the Islamic nation in general and protecting the vital issues and interests that concern Muslims worldwide.
The Organization of the Islamic Conference was established by a decision of the Islamic Summit Conference, which was held for the first time in Rabat from Sep. 22-25, 1969, following the reactions raised in the Islamic world after the burning of Al-Aqsa Mosque on Aug. 21, 1969, by an extremist Australian Jew. The name of the organization was changed to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation at the 38th meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers, which was held in Kazakhstan from June 28-30, 2011.
Since its establishment, the OIC has held 14 ordinary summits and 7 extraordinary summit meetings, hosted by various member states.The State of Qatar has hosted two Islamic summits. The first was the 9th Ordinary Islamic Summit, held in November 2000 under the theme "Peace and Development". The issue of Jerusalem and the events in the occupied Palestinian territories dominated its deliberations. At the conclusion of the summit, HH the Father Amir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani proposed sending a delegation of foreign ministers of the OIC member states to the United Nations and the permanent member states of the UN Security Council to make the necessary contacts to immediately stop the Israeli bombing and aggression against the Palestinian people and to secure the necessary international protection for them. The second summit was extraordinary, held in Doha in March 2003, and focused on the Iraqi and Palestinian issues.
