The D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation has issued a key statement after a meeting in Turkey calling for an immediate end to the Israeli war on Gaza.
The joint declaration issued at the end of the Extraordinary Meeting of the D-8 Council of Ministers in Istanbul on Saturday demanded “an immediate, permanent and unconditional ceasefire, the cessation of the Israeli aggression on the Palestinian people in Gaza, and the immediate implementation of the relevant UN Resolutions”.
It also called on countries around the world to ensure that Israel strictly complies with the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice, which require the regime to immediately halt its offensive on Gaza and withdraw from the southern Gaza city of Rafah where people have sheltered from bombardments elsewhere.
It reiterated that the “brutal Israeli aggression” on Gaza must end to allow the humanitarian aid to reach people in need in the Palestinian territory.
The statement also called on all countries to “stop supplying weapons and ammunition to Israel that are used by its army and extremist settlers to kill the Palestinian people and destroy their homes, hospitals, schools, mosques, churches and all their properties”.
D-8 members Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan and Turkey also called on the United States to “lift its veto on the full membership of Palestine in the UN as an independent and sovereign State”.
The group also condemned Israel for actions that could cause the war in Gaza to spread to other parts of the region, including “unjustifiable attacks” targeting the Iranian embassy in Syria’s Damascus in April.