Condemnation of Israeli aggression against Gaza Strip and Call for Security Council to adopt a decisive and binding resolution to impose a cessation of aggression – Letter from Libya, Mauritania and Saudi Arabia

6 December 2023

Letter dated 16 November 2023 from the Permanent Representatives of Libya, Mauritania and Saudi Arabia to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council

We have the honour to transmit herewith a copy of the resolution of the Joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit on Israeli Aggression against the Palestinian People held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on 11 November 2023 (see annex).

We would be grateful if the present letter and its annex could be circulated as a document of the Security Council, under the item entitled “The situation in The Middle East, including the Palestinian question”.

(Signed) Taher M. T. El-Sonni
Ambassador
Permanent Representative of the State of Libya to the United Nations
Chair of the Arab League in New York

Signed) Sidi Mohamed Laghdaf
Ambassador
Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania to the United Nations

Chair of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation
in New York

Signed) Abdulaziz Alwasil
Ambassador
Permanent Representative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations

Annex to the letter dated 16 November 2023 from the Permanent Representatives of Libya, Mauritania and Saudi Arabia to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council

[Original: Arabic, English and French]

Resolution of the Joint Arab Islamic Extraordinary Summit on the Israeli Aggression against the Palestinian People Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 11 November 2023

We, the Heads of the States and Governments of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the League of Arab States (LAS), gathering at the kind invitation of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, King of Saudi Arabia, and under the chairmanship of HRH Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, decided to merge the two Summits that the OIC and the LAS had decided to organize, in response to the kind invitations from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (chairing the two summits) and the State of Palestine, as an expression of our unified position in condemning the brutal Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank, including Al Quds Al-Sharif, and as a confirmation that we together stand against this aggression and the humanitarian catastrophe it causes, and work to stop it and put an end to all illegal Israeli practices that perpetuate the occupation and deprive the Palestinian people of their rights, especially their right to freedom and an independent and to a sovereign state over their entire national territory,

Expressing our thanks to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, King of Saudi Arabia, and HRH Crown Prince and Prime Minister, Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, for the generous hosting of these summits,

Confirming all resolutions of the OIC and the LAS regarding the Palestinian Cause and all the occupied Arab territories,

Recalling all resolutions of the United Nations and other international organizations regarding the Palestinian Cause, the crimes of the Israeli occupation, and the right of the Palestinian people to freedom and to independence in all of their territories occupied since 1967, which constitute a single geographical unit,

Welcoming the United Nations General Assembly Resolution No. A/ES-10/L.25 adopted by the 10th Emergency Special Session on October 26, 2023,

Reaffirming the centrality of the Palestinian Cause, and that we stand with all our capacities and capabilities alongside the brotherly Palestinian people in their legitimate struggle to liberate all their occupied territories and to fulfill all their inalienable rights, especially their right to self-determination and to live in their independent, sovereign state along the borders of June 4, 1967, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital,

Reaffirming that a just, lasting and comprehensive peace, being a strategic choice, is the only path to guarantee security and stability for all the peoples of the region and protect them from the spiral of violence and wars, and will not be achieved without ending the Israeli occupation and settling the Palestinian issue on the basis of the two-state solution,

Emphasizing the impossibility of achieving regional peace by bypassing the Palestinian issue or attempting to ignore the rights of the Palestinian people, and that the Arab Peace Initiative supported by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation is an essential term of reference,

Holding Israel, the occupying Power, responsible for the continuation and aggravation of the conflict as a result of its aggression against the rights of the Palestinian people and against Islamic and Christian sanctities, as well as its systematic policies and practices and its illegal unilateral steps that perpetuate the occupation, violate international law, and prevent the achievement of a just and
comprehensive peace,

Affirming that Israel and all countries of the region will not enjoy security and peace unless the Palestinians enjoy security and peace and regain all their usurped rights, and that the continuation of the Israeli occupation is a threat to the security and stability of the region and to international security and peace,

Condemning all forms of hatred and discrimination and all concepts that perpetuate the culture of hatred and extremism,

Warning against the disastrous repercussions of the retaliatory aggression launched by Israel against the Gaza Strip, which amounts to a mass war crime, and the barbaric crimes it also commits in the West Bank and Al-Quds Al Sharif, and also against the real danger of the expansion of the war as a result of Israel’s refusal to stop its aggression and the inability of the Security Council to enforce international law to put an end to this aggression,

Decide to:

1. Condemn the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip and the war crimes and barbaric, brutal and inhuman massacres committed by the colonial occupation government during this aggression, and against the Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem; and demand to stop these immediately;

2. Reject describing this retaliatory war as self-defense or justifying it under any pretext;

3. Break the siege on Gaza and impose the entry of Arab, Islamic and international humanitarian aid convoys, including food, medicine and fuel into the Gaza Strip immediately; call on international organizations to participate in this process; stress the necessity to allow these organizations to enter the Gaza Strip, to protect their crews and enable them to fully accomplish their role, and support the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA);

4. Support all steps taken by the Arab Republic of Egypt to confront the consequences of the brutal Israeli aggression on Gaza, and support its efforts to bring aid into the Gaza Strip in an immediate, sustainable and adequate manner;

5. Demand that the Security Council adopt a decisive and binding resolution that imposes a cessation of aggression and put an end to the practices of the colonial occupation authorities that violate international law, international humanitarian law, and international resolutions, the latest of which is UNGA Resolution No. A/ES-10/L.25 dated 10/26/2023; and consider that failure to do so is complicity that allows Israel to continue its brutal aggression that kills innocent people, children, elderly persons, and women, and turns Gaza into ruin;

6. Demand that all countries stop exporting weapons and ammunitions to the occupation authorities that are used by their army and terrorist settlers to kill the Palestinian people and destroy their homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, churches and all their properties;

7. Demand that the Security Council adopt an immediate resolution condemning Israel’s barbaric destruction of hospitals in the Gaza Strip, the prevention of the entry of medicine, food and fuel into it, and the cutting-off of electricity, water supply and basic services, including communication and internet services, being a collective punishment that constitutes a war crime under international law, and underline the necessity that the resolution requires Israel, the occupying power, to abide by international laws and immediately cancel these barbaric and inhuman measures, and emphasizes the necessity of lifting the blockade that Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip for years;

8. Request the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to complete the investigation into the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel against the Palestinian people in all the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem; mandate the General Secretariats of the OIC and the LAS to follow up on this, and establish two specialized legal monitoring units to document the Israeli crimes committed in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, and prepare legal arguments regarding all violations of international law and international humanitarian law committed by Israel, the occupying power, against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem. The unit shall submit its report 15 days after its establishment, to be subsequently presented to the LAS Council at the level of foreign ministers and to the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers, and thereafter on a monthly basis;

9. Support the legal and political initiatives of the State of Palestine to hold the officials of Israeli occupation authorities accountable for their crimes against the Palestinian people, including the advisory opinion process of the International Court of Justice, and the means to allow the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, established by resolution of the UN Human Rights Council, to investigate these crimes and not to hinder its mission;

10. Mandate the two Secretariats General to establish two media monitoring units to document all the crimes of the occupation authorities against the Palestinian people, and digital media platforms to lay bare the Israeli illegal and inhuman practices;

11. Mandate the Foreign Ministers of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as Chair of both the Arab summit (32nd Session) and the Islamic Summit, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Türkiye, Indonesia, Nigeria and any other interested countries and the Secretaries General of the two organizations to start immediate international action on behalf of all member states of the OIC and the LAS to initiate an international action to stop the war on Gaza and press for the launch of a serious and real political process to achieve lasting and comprehensive peace in accordance with the adopted international terms of reference;

12. Call on the Member States of the OIC and the LAS to exert diplomatic, political and legal pressure and take all deterrent measures necessary to stop the crimes of the colonial occupation authorities against humanity;

13. Denounce double standards in the application of international law; warn that double standards seriously undermine the credibility of the States that protect Israel from, and place it above, international law, and the credibility of multilateral action, and lay bare the selectivity of applying the system of human values; and affirm that the positions of the Arab and Islamic States will be affected by the double standards that will lead to a gap between cultures and civilizations;

14. Condemn the displacement of about one and a half million Palestinians from the north of the Gaza Strip to its south, as a war crime according to the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and its 1977 Protocol; call on the States parties to the Convention to adopt a collective resolution condemning and rejecting it; call on all United Nations organizations to stand against the colonial occupation authorities’ attempts to perpetuate this miserable inhuman reality; and stress the need for the immediate return of these displaced people to their homes and areas;

15. Completely and absolutely reject and collectively stand against any attempts at individual or collective forced relocation, forced displacement, exile or deportation of the Palestinian people, whether inside the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, including Al-Quds, or outside of their territories, to any other destination whatsoever, considering this as a red line and a war crime;

16. Condemn the killing and targeting of civilians, as a principled position based on our human values and consistent with international law and international humanitarian law; and emphasize the need for the international community to take immediate and rapid actions to put an end to the killing and targeting of Palestinian civilians, in a way that confirms that everyone has an equal right to life, with no discrimination on the basis of nationality, race or religion;

17. Emphasize the need to release all prisoners, detainees and civilians; condemn the abhorrent crimes committed by the colonial occupation authorities against thousands of Palestinian prisoners; and call on all concerned countries and international organizations to pressure for stopping these crimes and prosecuting their perpetrators;

18. Stress the need to put an end to the crimes of killing committed by the occupation forces, to the terrorism practiced by settlers and to their crimes in Palestinian villages, cities and camps in the occupied West Bank, and all attacks on the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque and all Islamic and Christian sanctities;

19. Emphasize the necessity that Israel implements its obligations as the occupying power, and to stop all illegal Israeli measures that perpetuate the occupation, especially the building and expansion of settlements, the confiscation of lands, and the displacement of Palestinians from their homes;

20. Condemn the military operations waged by the occupation forces against Palestinian cities and camps; condemn the terrorism practiced by settlers; and call on the international community to include settler associations and organizations on international terrorism lists and to enable the Palestinian people to enjoy all the rights being enjoyed by all other peoples of the world, including human rights and the right to security, self-determination, and the embodiment of the independence of their State on their land and to ensure and provide them with mechanism of international protection;

21. Condemn the Israeli attacks on the Islamic and Christian holy sites in Al-Quds, and Israel’s illegal measures that violate freedom of worship, and stress the necessity of respecting the existing legal and historical status-quo in the holy sites, and that the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif, with its entire area of 144 thousand square meters, is an exclusive place of worship for Muslims, and the Jerusalem Endowments and Blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque Affairs Department is the authority that has exclusive jurisdiction to manage all Al-Aqsa affairs and regulate entry to it, within the framework of the historical Hashemite custodianship of the Islamic and Christian holy sites in Al-Quds; and support the role of the Chair of Al-Quds Committee and its efforts in standing against the occupation authorities’ practices in the holy city;

22. Condemn the hateful, extremist and racist acts and statements made by ministers in the Israeli occupation government, including the threat by one of these ministers to use nuclear weapons against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip; and consider these a serious threat to international peace and security, which requires supporting the conference to establish a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and all Other Weapons of Mass Destruction, held within the framework of the United Nations, and the conference’s objectives to confront this threat;

23. Condemn the killing of journalists, children and women, the targeting of paramedics, and the use of internationally banned white phosphorus in the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and Lebanon; condemn the repeated Israeli statements and threats to return Lebanon to the “stone age”; stress the necessity to prevent the expansion of the conflict; and call on the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons to investigate into Israel’s use of chemical weapons;

24. Emphasize that the Palestine Liberation Organization is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people; and call on the Palestinian factions and forces to unite under its umbrella and to assume their responsibilities within a national partnership led by the Palestine Liberation Organization;

25. Reaffirm adherence to peace as a strategic choice to end the Israeli occupation and settle the Arab-Israeli conflict in accordance with international law and relevant international resolutions, including Security Council Resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 497 (1981), 1515 (2003), and 2334 (2016); and emphasize adherence to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative with all its provisions and priorities, being the unified, consensual Arab position and the basis for any efforts to revive peace in the Middle East, which stipulates that the prerequisite for peace with Israel and the establishment of normal relations with it is ending its occupation of all Palestinian and Arab territories, embodying the independence and full sovereignty of the State of Palestine along the borders of the 4 June 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and restoring the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including their right to self-determination, the right of return and compensation for Palestinian refugees, and the achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugees in accordance with UNGA Resolution 194 of 1948;

26. Emphasize the necessity that the international community acts immediately to launch a serious and genuine peace process to achieve peace on the basis of the two-state solution in a way that meets all the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, especially their right to embody their independent, sovereign State along the borders of June 4, 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, living in security and peace side by side with Israel, in accordance with international resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative with all its provisions;

27. Stress that the failure to find a solution to the Palestinian Cause for more than 75 years and to stand against the crimes of the Israeli colonial occupation and its systematic policies to undermine the two-state solution by building and expanding colonial settlements, in addition to the unconditional support and protection from accountability that some parties provide for the Israeli occupation, and the refusal to heed the continuous warnings about the danger of turning a blind eye to these crimes which have serious repercussions on the future of global peace and security, lie behind the serious deterioration of the situation;

28. Reject any proposals that involve the separation of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank, including East Jerusalem; and underline that any approach to the future of Gaza must be placed within the context of action to find a comprehensive solution that guarantees the unity of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as the territory of the Palestinian State, which must be embodied in a free, independent, sovereign State with East Jerusalem as its capital along the borders of June 4, 1967;

29. Call for convening an international peace conference, as soon as possible, through which a credible peace process will be launched on the basis of international law, international resolutions, and the “land for peace” principle, within a specific time-frame and with international guarantees, leading to an end to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, the occupied Syrian Golan, and the Lebanese Shebaa Farms, Kafr Shuba hills, and the outskirts of the town of al-Mari, and the implementation of the two-state solution.

30. Call for activating the Arab and Islamic Financial Safety Net, in accordance with the resolution adopted by the 14th Islamic Summit Conference and resolutions of the Arab Summits, in order to provide financial contributions and financial, economic and humanitarian support to the Government of the State of Palestine and to UNRWA; and emphasize the need to mobilize international partners to reconstruct Gaza and mitigate the effects of the massive destruction caused by the Israeli aggression as soon as it stops;

31. Mandate the Secretary-General of the OIC and the Secretary-General of the LAS to follow up on the implementation of this Resolution and submit a report thereon it to the next session of their respective councils.

{}{}{}{}{}

Reservations:

– The Tunisian Republic has registered its reservation to all paragraphs of this resolution except those that pertain to calling for an immediate stop of the aggression against the Palestinian people and for an immediate entry to humanitarian aid and for lifting the blockage over the entirety of Palestine.

– The People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria:

A. The Algerian delegation underlines its request that all references to Al-Quds Committee in paragraph (21) should be omitted, as the delegation considers that neither the present challenges nor the current circumstances allow reference to institutions proved to be ineffective and absent from the current circumstances.

B. The Algerian delegation has registered its reservation to the phrase mention in paragraph (22) of this resolution which pertains to establishing “normal relations with Israel,” under any circumstances or pretext, since establishing relations with whatever state is a sovereign decision which cannot be under any collective commitment.

– The Republic of Iraq has registered its reservation to the phrase “two-state solution” wherever it is mentioned in the resolution, as inconsistent with Iraqi laws; has registered its reservation to the phrase “killing of civilians” as it equates between the Palestinian martyrs and the Israeli settlers; and has registered its reservation to the phrase “the establishment of normal relations with it.”

__________