OIC Committee on Palestine Reaffirms the Centrality of the Cause of Palestine

Date: 22/09/2017

The OIC Ministerial Committee of Six on Palestine held their meeting in New York on the sidelines of the Annual Coordination Meeting on 20 September 2017. The Ministers reaffirmed the centrality of the cause of Palestine and Al-Quds Al-Sharif for the entire Islamic Ummah and reiterated their unwavering support for the rights of the Palestinian people to national independence and to exercise their sovereignty within their own State, based on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital. They called on the UNSC to assume its responsibility to ensure that Israel halts its violations and end its occupation within a well-defined timeframe and maintain the vision of a two-state solution. They stressed in this regard the urgency of the monitoring and implementation of UNSC resolution 2334 (2016).

The Ministers strongly condemned all illegal and illegitimate Israeli measures, especially those aimed at altering the demography, status, and Arab-Islamic character and identity of Al-Quds Al-Sharif, settlements activities and the construction of the Apartheid wall within and around the city in order to isolate it from its natural Palestinian environs. The Ministers further appealed to the international community to put pressure on Israel to lift the blockade and end the closure of the Gaza Strip, to remove roadblocks that are fragmenting the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and restrict the movement of Palestinian citizens.

The Ministers called on the OIC Members to redouble their efforts in support of the Palestinian people and the just cause of Palestine. They called for the full implementation of all the relevant United Nations resolutions regarding the question of Palestine, stressing the centrality of international law for a just solution and the imperative of making progress in the coming period towards bringing an end to the Israeli occupation that began in 1967 and achieving a lasting peace.