The extraordinary open-ended meeting of the Executive Committee of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), held at the level of permanent delegates in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, affirmed that Jerusalem and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque are red lines for the Islamic nation. There is no security and stability unless its complete liberation from occupation and its return to the embrace of its Palestinian people and its Islamic nation.
The OIC called on the Member States to unite their collective and individual efforts, defend Jerusalem and its holy places, combat Israel’s crimes, and support the Palestinian people and their resilience in Israel’s brutal aggression.
The OIC affirmed to its members that resolutions concerning the Palestinian question should be respected and implemented as the central issue and raison d ‘etre of the Islamic Ummah.
This came in the final statement of the meeting, which came to discuss the escalating Israeli violations of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, at the request of the Republic of Indonesia.
The statement condemned the criminal Israeli attacks against the Palestinian people, specifically in the city of Jerusalem, and rejected all illegal measures against the Holy City aimed at imposing Israeli colonial control over it and changing the historical and legal status of the Holy City, its demographic composition and its Arab-Islamic character.
It also condemned the continuing attacks and incursions by the Israeli occupying forces, colonists, and extremists, against worshippers and protestors in the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif.
The Israeli attacks against the Palestinian people, which have escalated dangerously during the past few days of the holy month of Ramadan, leading to hundreds of injuries and arrests among unarmed Muslim worshippers, and the serious damage been done to the facilities of Al-Haram Al-Sharif, in repeated exasperation of the sanctity of the mosque and the rituals of worship therein.
That constitutes a flagrant provocation to the feelings of Muslims and a continuation of aggression against the Palestinian people of Jerusalem and its holy places.
OIC holds the Israeli occupation the responsibility for the consequences of these escalating practices, rejecting all illegal measures against the Holy City, including the attempts to partition the Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif, demanding its immediate cessation, and affirming that there is no legal, religious or historical legitimacy to these dangerous steps that undermine the sanctity of the Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Hissein Brahim Taha, has reaffirmed the OIC’s total commitment and support for the right of the Palestinian people to sovereignty over their occupied land, including East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine.
He also underlined the religious and spiritual centrality of this city and the eternal connection of Muslims across the world to the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s first qibla and third holiest mosque.
The Secretary-General disclosed that he had dispatched letters to several international actors through which he conveyed the OIC’s rejection and condemnation of attempts by Israel to impose temporal and spatial division on the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque. He requested these actors and the international community to act quickly and stop Israel’s aggression in the holy sites.
Secretary-General Taha also called for the mobilization of political, economic, and media efforts like never before to protect al-Quds (Jerusalem) and its holy sites, support the steadfastness of its inhabitants in confronting Israeli Judaization plans and defend the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.
He called for responsible action and engagement with all international actors and relevant international bodies to take appropriate political and legal measures against Israel, the occupation power, and bring pressure to bear on it to stop its ongoing violations against the Palestinian people and their holy sites.
He urged all international actors to assume their responsibilities and get involved to sponsor a political track that will end the Israeli occupation and bring about the establishment of an independent and sovereign state of Palestine on the borders of 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in accordance with international law, relevant resolutions of the United Nations and the Arab peace initiative.
For his part, the Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the OIC, Saleh Bin Hamad Suhaibani delivered a statement saying: the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosque King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud had declared during his presidency of the 29th Arab Summit in Dhahran that “Palestine is our first cause and Palestine and its people are in the conscience of Arab and Muslims.”
He reiterated at the same time, “This will continue to be so until the brotherly Palestinian people get all their legitimate rights, notably the establishment of the State of Palestine. The cause of Palestine is the essential pillar of the OIC work and the focus of our attention until the brotherly people of Palestine enjoy all their rights guaranteed by resolutions of international legitimacy and the Arab peace initiative.”
Suhaibani stated that while the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia strongly condemns and denounces the repeated and provocative Israeli onslaught and aggression against worshipers in the blessed al-Aqsa Mosque, it persistently calls on the international community to act effectively to assume its role in holding Israeli occupation forces fully responsible for those crimes and violations and their negative repercussion on the chances to revive the peace process, as the provocative acts threaten to ignite conflict in the region.
