ISLAMABAD: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and six other Muslim countries on Sunday condemned Israel’s rejection of a roadmap for fully implementing US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, the Pakistani foreign ministry said.
The roadmap, which Palestinian factions have accepted, was developed through mediation involving Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye, and the US, along with the High Representative for Gaza and the Peace Council. It calls for armed groups, including Hamas, to disarm; an Israeli military withdrawal; deployment of an international stabilization force; transfer of administrative authority to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza; and reconstruction of the territory.
In a joint statement issued on Sunday, the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Turkiye, Qatar and the UAE said they “condemn the declared Israeli rejection of the Road Map” and of Palestinian statehood, accusing Israel of undermining the Gaza peace plan’s implementation and the “efforts undertaken to achieve a just and lasting peace.”
“These positions amount to a direct repudiation of the Comprehensive Plan, jeopardize its implementation, and fundamentally undermine the collective efforts undertaken to achieve a just and lasting peace,” the foreign ministers said in the joint statement.
“Such rejection confirms that Israel now bears responsibility for obstructing the efforts to bring peace in Gaza and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
The statement came as President Donald Trump’s envoys met with Egyptian, Qatari and Turkish mediators in Cairo, a diplomatic source told Reuters, in a bid to advance Trump’s Gaza peace plan even as Israel pressed on with airstrikes in the enclave.
Hamas officials were present at some of the meetings between mediators and Trump’s envoy and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Nickolay Mladenov, Trump’s Board of Peace envoy for Gaza, the diplomat said. A senior Israeli official said Kushner and Mladenov were scheduled to meet on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on August 9 said Trump’s latest roadmap for Gaza peace was ‘unacceptable’.
Rejecting the roadmap constitutes an explicit refusal to proceed with the implementation of the Gaza peace plan, and directly threatens to derail the extensive efforts exerted by US President Donald Trump to bring an end to the war in Gaza and establish the conditions for lasting peace, according to the foreign ministers of the eight Muslim countries.
In this regard, the ministers underscored the importance of sustained and active US engagement to ensure and enforce Israel’s full compliance with the commitments and arrangements envisaged under the Comprehensive Plan and its Road Map, and to prevent further obstruction of their implementation. They further stressed that Israel bears direct and full responsibility for “any consequences resulting from its continued rejection, obstruction, delay or non-compliance, including any resulting deterioration of the situation on the ground and disruption of ending the war in Gaza.”
“The ministers reaffirm the urgent need for the full and immediate implementation of the Comprehensive Plan in order to address the grave humanitarian situation, ensure security and stability for all in Gaza, and pave the way for reconstruction and recovery and advancing a just and lasting peace grounded in the Palestinian right to self-determination and statehood in accordance with international law,” the joint statement said.
“The ministers underscore the importance of the continued role of the Board of Peace and call on all parties to support its efforts for the implementation of the Road Map and advancing the second phase of President Trump’s Comprehensive Plan. The Ministers further call upon the Board of Peace, with the active support and engagement of the United States, to take immediate and concrete measures within its mandate to uphold the integrity of the Comprehensive Plan and prevent any party from obstructing its implementation.”
