Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has demanded that Israel immediately stop its military aggression in Gaza and Lebanon at the opening of a summit of Arab and Muslim leaders in Riyadh.
In an address before the joint Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit on Monday, the crown prince, also known as MBS, condemned the “massacre committed against Palestinian and Lebanese people”.
He urged Israel “to refrain from any further act of aggression” and called on countries around the world to recognise Palestinian statehood.
Ahmed Aboul Gheit, secretary-general of the Arab League, also joined MBS in condemning Israel’s military operation in Gaza and Lebanon, saying that “words cannot express the plight of the Palestinian people”.
“The actions taken by Israel against the Palestinian people are undermining efforts to achieve lasting peace. It is only with justice that we will be able to establish lasting peace,” Aboul Gheit said.
“The world cannot turn a blind eye” to Israeli violence, he stressed.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Najib Mikati told the summit that his country was suffering an “unprecedented” crisis that threatens its existence, as Israel wages war on Hezbollah.
“Lebanon is going through an unprecedented historical and existential crisis that threatens its present and future,” he said.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian did not attend the meeting due to pressing “executive matters”.
But Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref condemned Israel’s assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders as “organised terrorism” in remarks to the summit.
“The operations that are conceptualised with the deceptive phrasing of ‘targeted killing’, and during which Palestinian elites and leaders of other countries in the region are killed one by one or en masse, are nothing but lawlessness and organised terrorism,” he said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and Nigerian President Bola Tinubu also attended the summit.
In the closing statement on Monday, the assembled leaders said they “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”, citing torture, executions, disappearances and “ethnic cleansing”.
The statement also condemned attempts to cement Israel’s grip on Israeli-occupied east Jerusalem, calling it the “eternal capital” of the Palestinian territories, and called for the unification of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem under a Palestinian state.
“We reaffirm the full sovereignty of the State of Palestine over occupied East [Jerusalem], the eternal capital of Palestine, and reject any Israeli decisions or measures aimed at Judaising it and consolidating its colonial occupation of the city,” the summit’s closing statement said.
The summit comes a year after a similar gathering in Riyadh of the Cairo-based Arab League and the Jeddah-based OIC, during which leaders condemned Israeli actions in Gaza as “barbaric”.
However, leaders were unable to agree on action against Israel despite calls to sever economic and diplomatic ties with the country or disrupt its oil supplies.
The 57-member OIC and 22-member Arab League include countries that recognise Israel and those firmly opposed to its regional integration.
Donald Trump’s election to the United States presidency last week – and his upcoming, second term in the White House – are likely to be on leaders’ minds in Riyadh, said Anna Jacobs, senior Gulf analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank.
“This summit is very much an opportunity for regional leaders to signal to the incoming Trump administration what they want in terms of US engagement,” she told the AFP news agency.
“The message will likely be one of dialogue, de-escalation and calling out Israeli military campaigns in the region.”
Israel’s war on Gaza began after an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 that claimed more than 1,100 lives. Since then, Israel has killed more than 43,600 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians.
Israel has also killed more than 3,100 people in Lebanon since October 7 last year as it fights Iran-backed Hezbollah.
