DOHA: Arab and Islamic nations convened an emergency meeting in Qatar following Israel’s airstrike last week targeting Hamas leaders in Doha.
The strike has been condemned by the U.N. Security Council. Analysts now say diplomatic pressure may intensify.
Earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem to discuss the situation. President Donald Trump has already criticized the strike, calling for restraint.
Meanwhile, Israel has intensified its military campaign in Gaza. Army Radio reported that approximately 300,000 residents have fled Gaza City amid ongoing bombardments.
Gaza’s health ministry said Israeli attacks in the northern part of the enclave killed at least 68 Palestinians and wounded 346 others in the past 24 hours.
In the Mediterranean, a Greek sailing vessel joined an international flotilla aiming to challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza. The boat – Oxygono – departed Sunday from Syros as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which includes around 60 ships and 1,000 activists from more than 40 countries.
Organizers say the mission seeks to deliver humanitarian aid and raise awareness of Palestinian suffering nearly two years into the conflict.
Meanwhile, on the eve of an emergency summit of Arab and Islamic leaders organised by Qatar after Israel carried out an unprecedented air strike on Hamas peace negotiators in Doha, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani asserted on Sunday that Israel’s “practices” will not stop Doha’s mediation efforts with Egypt and the United States to end the war in Gaza, urging the international community to “stop using double standards” and punish Israel for its “crimes”.
“The time has come for the international community to stop using double standards and to punish Israel for all the crimes it has committed, and Israel needs to know that the ongoing war of extermination that our brotherly Palestinian people is being subjected to, and whose aim is to expel them from their land, will not work,” the prime minister said.
According to Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman, Majed al-Ansari, Monday’s meeting of Arab and Islamic leaders will consider “a draft resolution on the Israeli attack on the State of Qatar”.
The Arab-Islamic summit — held under the umbrella of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation — is expected to draw heads of state and governments, along with senior officials, from across the Muslim world, Al Jazeera reported.
PM Shehbaz Sharif is also set to attend the high-level moot, while Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar actively participated in a meeting of foreign ministers on Sunday to craft the draft resolution in Doha, the report said.
The summit, cosponsored by Pakistan, has been convened in the wake of Israel’s strikes on Doha and the escalating developments in Palestine — following Israeli attempts to occupy Gaza, expand settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and forcibly displace the Palestinians, according to the Foreign Office of Pakistan.
Diplomats said more than 50 OIC member states are expected to attend the Doha summit, where leaders may also weigh in on pushing Palestinian statehood at the upcoming UN General Assembly session in New York.
Among the leaders attending will be Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was also expected to attend, Turkish media reported.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas arrived in Doha on Sunday, on the eve of the summit.
It remained to be seen whether Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, would attend, though he visited Qatar earlier this week in a show of neighbourly solidarity.
Monday’s summit in Doha is expected to rally support for Qatar in the wake of last week’s Israeli attack targeting Hamas in the Gulf state.
A draft of the resolution that will be considered by heads of state condemned Israel’s attack as a destabilising escalation and said the states opposed Israel’s “plans to impose a new reality in the region”.
However, the draft, which was seen by Reuters, did not mention any diplomatic or economic moves against Israel. The resolution may change before the leaders meet in Doha on Monday.
The attack has prompted US-allied Gulf Arab states to close ranks, adding to strains in ties between the UAE and Israel, which normalised relations in 2020.
The gathering is a message that “Qatar is not alone … and that Arab and Islamic states stand by it,” Arab League Secretary General Ahmed Aboul Gheit told the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.
