Arab, Muslim leaders touch down in Riyadh for talks on war in Gaza and Lebanon
Saudi-state media says gathering of Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation heads to focus on Israeli ‘aggression’
Arab and Muslim leaders have begun arriving in Saudi Arabia for a summit scheduled for Monday that will focus on Israel’s wars against the Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah terror groups, Saudi state media said.
The Saudi foreign ministry announced the summit in late October during the first meeting of an “international alliance” pushing for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Attendees will “discuss the continued Israeli aggression on the Palestinian territories and the Lebanese Republic, and the current developments in the region,” the official Saudi Press Agency said on Sunday.
It comes one year after a similar gathering in Riyadh of the Cairo-based Arab League and the Jeddah-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) during which leaders condemned Israeli forces’ actions in Gaza as “barbaric.”
The Saudi state-affiliated Al-Ekhbariya news channel broadcast footage on Sunday of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu and Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati landing in Riyadh.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was also scheduled to attend, the Pakistani foreign ministry said last week, adding that he planned to call for “an immediate end to the genocide in Gaza” and the “immediate cessation of the ongoing Israeli adventurism in the region.”
The 57-member OIC and 22-member Arab League include countries that recognize Israel and others firmly opposed to its regional integration.
Last year’s summit in Riyadh saw disagreement on measures like severing economic and diplomatic ties with Israel and disrupting its oil supplies.
Israel has been at war with Hamas and its allies since October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, massacring some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, 97 of whom are still being held.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 43,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7. Israel also says it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 370.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel on October 8, and its attacks have forced the displacement of some 60,000 people from their homes in northern Israel.
Israel intensified its airstrikes in late September before sending ground troops into southern Lebanon to fight Hezbollah.
