RIYADH, Nov 11 (Portal) – Saudi Arabia will bring together Arab and Muslim leaders for an extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh on Saturday, as the kingdom uses its influence to push the United States and Israel for an end to hostilities in to push Gaza.
Dozens of heads of state and government, including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, are attending the summit, which is expected to strongly condemn Israel’s campaign in the Gaza Strip and call for an end to the forced relocation of Palestinians there.
Also present are Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was welcomed back to the Arab League earlier this year.
Raisi said on Saturday that it was time to take action rather than talk on the conflict as he headed to Riyadh.
“Gaza is not a theater for words. It should be a venue for action,” he said at Tehran airport before his departure. “Today the unity of Islamic countries is very important,” he added.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman condemned on Friday “what is happening to the Gaza Strip through military attacks, attacks on civilians and violations of international law by the Israeli occupation authorities.”
There has been tension in the Middle East since Hamas militants rampaged through Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people.
Since then, Israel has stepped up its attack on Gaza, killing 11,078 Gazans as of Friday, 40% of them children, according to Palestinian officials.
Fighting intensified on Saturday night near crowded hospitals in Gaza City, which Palestinian officials said were hit by explosions and gunfire.
The war has upended traditional alliances in the Middle East, as Riyadh worked more closely with Iran, resisted U.S. pressure to condemn Hamas and shelved its plans to normalize ties with Israel.
Raisi’s trip to Saudi Arabia is the first visit by an Iranian head of state since Tehran and Riyadh ended years of hostilities under a China-brokered deal in March.
The kingdom was scheduled to host two extraordinary summits on Saturday and Sunday, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit and the Arab League summit. The joint summit will replace the two separate meetings given the situation in the Gaza Strip, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said.
The joint meeting “is being held in response to the exceptional circumstances in the Palestinian Gaza Strip, as countries feel the need to combine their efforts and represent a unified collective position,” it said.
The decision was made after the kingdom’s consultations with the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the statement said.
Arab foreign ministers who held an emergency meeting on Thursday to prepare for the summit were divided as some countries, led by Algeria, called for cutting all diplomatic ties with Israel, two delegates told Portal.
A bloc of Arab countries that have established diplomatic ties with Israel pushed back, stressing the need to keep channels open with the Netanyahu government, they said.
Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi and Moaz Abd-Alaziz in Cairo; Writing by Aziz El Yaakoubi; Edited by Sandra Maler, William Maclean
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