Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has said that while the International Court of Justice might have termed the Israeli bombardment in Gaza as “plausible genocide”, it was clear that it was “genocide”.
“What Israel is doing with unprecedented impunity is more than just adventurism. It is pure madness,” Dar said while addressing an executive committee meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
“The oppressor is acting as if it has total freedom to break and bend the international law and norms and liberty,” he said.
“Can any sane mind, any conscienable nation, any responsible government or state condone or turn a blind eye to what Israel has done and continues to do,” Dar added.
“We are as close as we think we have ever been” to a deal for a Gaza ceasefire and the release of hostages held by Hamas, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
Meanwhile, the chair of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has told a summit that the “heinous” killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh risks tipping the Middle East into “wider conflict”.
Gambian Foreign Minister Mamadou Tangara spoke at the beginning of an extraordinary OIC session in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah. The gathering of foreign ministers was called in part by Iran, where Haniyeh was killed last week in an attack the Islamic republic has blamed on Israel.
“This heinous act serves only to escalate the existing tensions potentially leading to a wider conflict that could involve the entire region,” said Tangara, whose country currently chairs the OIC.
Haniyeh’s killing “will not quell the Palestinian cause but rather it amplifies it, underscoring the urgency for justice and human rights for the Palestinian people”, he said.
“The sovereignty and territorial integrity of nation states are fundamental principles underpinning the international order.
“Respecting these principles has profound implications and their violation equally carries significant consequences.” Earlier, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and OIC Secretary General Hissein Brahim Taha on Wednesday stressed urgency of a ceasefire in Gaza and unhindered supply of humanitarian assistance for the Palestinians.
Dar met with Hissein Brahim Taha on the sidelines of the Open-Ended Extraordinary Meeting of OIC Executive Committee in Jeddah.
