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APPROACHES DIFFER
Fighting intensified overnight into Saturday near Gaza City’s overcrowded hospitals, Palestinian officials said.
A baby died in an incubator at Gaza’s largest hospital after it lost power, and a patient in intensive care was killed by an Israeli shell, the Palestinian health ministry said.
The war has upended traditional Middle East alliances as Riyadh has engaged more closely with Iran, pushed back against US pressure to condemn Hamas, and put on hold its plans to normalise ties with Israel.
Raisi’s trip to Saudi Arabia is the first by an Iranian head of state in more than a decade. Tehran and Riyadh formally ended years of hostility under a Chinese-brokered deal in March.
Erdogan called for an international peace conference to find a permanent solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestinians.
“What we need in Gaza is not pauses for a couple of hours, rather we need a permanent ceasefire,” Erdogan told the summit.
Qatar’s emir said that his country, where several Hamas leaders are based, was seeking to mediate the release of Israeli hostages and hoped a humanitarian truce would be reached soon.
“For how long will the international community treat Israel as if it is above international laws?” he asked.
President Joko Widodo of Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest Muslim population, said that the “Indonesian Hospital in North Gaza continues to be the target of Israeli attacks and has run out of fuel”.
He said a way must be found to make Israel cease fire immediately, before adding: “The (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) must use all fronts to hold Israel accountable for the humanitarian atrocities it has committed.”
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan told reporters that there could be no talks about the future of Gaza except “talks about an immediate ceasefire”.
The summit also demanded an end to the siege of Gaza, access for humanitarian aid and a halt to the sale of arms to Israel.
The kingdom had been scheduled to host two extraordinary summits, of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League, on Saturday and Sunday, but opted for a joint summit because of the “extraordinary” Gaza situation, the Saudi foreign ministry said.
Hamas had urged the summit to take “a historic and decisive decision and move to stop the Zionist aggression immediately”.
Some Arab countries, led by Algeria, called for a complete cut in diplomatic ties with Israel, two delegates told Reuters.
Other Arab countries that have established diplomatic relations with Israel pushed back, stressing the need to keep channels open with Netanyahu’s government, they said.
At a press conference in Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Arab leadership to “stand up against Hamas”.
“It only brought two things to the Gaza Strip – poverty and blood,” Netanyahu said. “Hamas is an integral part of the terror axis that Iran leads and that axis of terror and hatred endangers the whole world and the whole Arab world.”
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