OIC Executive Committee Extraordinary Meeting: Impunity Encouraged Occupying Power to Persist – OIC Press Release (Non-UN Document)

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H.E. Hissein Brahim Taha, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), stressed that Israel’s impunity has encouraged it to persist in its policies, which in their entirety amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity that require investigation and accountability.

This was part of his speech delivered on his behalf by Amb. Samir Bakr Diab, Assistant Secretary-General for Palestine and Al-Quds Ash-Sharif, at the General Secretariat during the extraordinary open-ended meeting of the OIC Executive Committee (EC) today, Monday, February 27, 2023, at its headquarters in Jeddah. The meeting dealt with the issue of the escalation of the Israeli aggression against the city of Nablus and the entire land of the State of Palestine, which claimed the lives of 11 martyrs and wounded dozens of Palestinians.

In his speech, the Secretary-General said that international law is indivisible, while Israel, the occupying power, escalates its crimes and violations and to perpetuate its colonial settlement regime in the Palestinian land under the eyes of the international community, pointing to its violation of international law, the Geneva Conventions and United Nations resolutions, which took place due to the absence of political, legal, or humanitarian deterrent.

The Secretary-General offered his heartfelt condolences to all the families of the martyrs who died because of the crime of Israel’s attack on the city of Nablus, extending a salutation of admiration for the steadfast Palestinian people. Hissein Taha condemned the heinous crime that took place in Nablus and before that in the cities of Jericho and Jenin and considered these another chapter in the endless record of the occupation’s crimes against the Palestinian people.

The Secretary-General called on the OIC Member States to contribute written statements and oral arguments to the International Court of Justice, which was called upon by the United Nations General Assembly to express an advisory opinion on the legal status of the Israeli occupation and the effects arising from Israel’s long-term occupation of the Palestinian land, including the city of Al-Quds Ash-Sharif, and its continuous violations of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.