JEDDAH, 13 November 2006 — The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has called a ministerial-level meeting of its executive committee in Jeddah on Saturday. The meeting will discuss the situation in Palestine due to Israel’s massacre of children and women in Beit Hanoun.
The decision to call the meeting followed OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu’s telephone conversation with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday. The OIC chief condemned the Israeli massacres in Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip and Yamun village in the occupied West Bank. “This is a reaffirmation of Israel’s disregard for international law, its persistence in committing war crimes, and its violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention which requires urgent international action to stop such massacres and violations,” he told reporters in Jeddah.
According to Dr. Isam Shanti, media adviser to the OIC chief, Saturday’s meeting in Jeddah will examine the latest developments in the occupied Palestinian territories and discuss ways and means of providing support to the Palestinian people. Formally established in September 1969 after the burning of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the OIC has 57 member states.
Yesterday’s veto by the United States of a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli barbarity has already raised tensions in the Arab street and has led to widespread condemnation of the world’s only superpower.
“This decision by the American administration clearly means the granting of absolute legitimacy to the massacre and slaughter committed by the occupation forces against the Palestinian people,” Ghazi Hamad, the spokesman for the Hamas-led Palestinian government, told reporters in Gaza City. “This decision means granting the occupation government continuing protection and cover with no limit for the crimes that they commit against innocent civilians in Palestine.”
