Arab League summit kicks off in Baghdad with Gaza at the top of the agenda

Regional leaders are to meet in Baghdad at the annual summit of the Arab League, with the war in Gaza expected to once again loom large.

In March, at an emergency summit in Cairo, Arab leaders endorsed a proposed plan for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip without displacing its roughly 2 million residents.

Saturday’s summit comes two months after Israel ended a ceasefire reached with the Hamas terror group in January. In recent days, Israel has launched a new offensive in Gaza. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed a further escalation of force to pursue his aim of destroying Hamas.

The Baghdad meeting was upstaged by US President Donald Trump’s tour in the region earlier in the week. Trump’s visit did not usher in a deal for a new ceasefire in Gaza as many had hoped, but he grabbed headlines by meeting with new Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa — who had once fought against US forces in Iraq — and promising to remove US sanctions imposed on Syria.

Al-Sharaa was not attending the summit in Baghdad, where Syria’s delegation was headed by Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani. Iraqi Shiite militias and political factions are wary of al-Sharaa’s past as a Sunni militant and had pushed back against his invitation to the summit.