Late on Friday evening, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the merging of the emergency Islamic and Arab summits, so that they will be held as one summit today, Saturday.

A statement by the Saudi Foreign Ministry said, “In response to the exceptional circumstances taking place in Gaza, and after the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia consulted with the League of Arab State and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, it was decided to hold an exceptional joint Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh today, Saturday, instead of the “Extraordinary Arab Summit.” and the “Extraordinary Islamic Summit,” which were scheduled to be held on the same date.

The ministry added that this decision “comes from the leaders of all countries’ awareness of the importance of uniting efforts and coming up with a unified collective position that expresses the common Arab and Islamic will regarding the dangerous and unprecedented developments witnessed in Gaza and the Palestinian territories that require Arab and Islamic unity to confront them and contain their repercussions.”

According to sources for Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, “half of the foreign ministers of the member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation demanded merging the two summits, and Saudi Arabia agreed to that.”

The same sources confirmed to Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that the reason for the joint summit, that is, merging the two summits, is due to the lack of consensus on important decisions against the Israeli occupation, as influential countries in the Arab League prevented the adoption of serious proposals that would carry pressure measures on the Israeli occupation to stop its aggression. These influential countries lobbied in favor of replacing the procedures with dull paragraphs.

This matter is considered contradictory to the request of the Palestinian leadership, which insisted that the emergency Arab summit be separate from the summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, so that there would be greater interest in the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, and so that the summit could come up with important recommendations.

In a context related to the Arab Summit, sources revealed to Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed that Libya requested the addition of 8 proposals to the draft final statement of the summit, reiterating its expression of “its permanent and complete solidarity with the Palestinian people in confronting the Israeli aggression and its standing with them in everything that would end this aggression.” .

Among the Libyan proposals is “affirming the right of the Palestinian Arab people to resist the brutal Zionist occupation, defending their filth, honor and homeland, rejecting the re-occupation of the Gaza Strip, and opposing the attempts of the aggressing Zionist entity to deviate from defining the concept of legitimate defense.”

Libya also stressed the need to take “practical steps” to prosecute Israel internationally for all its crimes against the Palestinian people.

While it urged Tripoli to work “to provide urgent and material support to meet all the needs of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” while urgently delivering supplies of energy, water, medicine, and mobile hospitals, it proposed forming a mini-Arab ministerial committee to employ the tools and capabilities of the Arab economy to put pressure on influential countries to force Israel to stop its aggression. The Palestinians and binding them to international legitimacy resolutions, in addition to expanding the list of economic measures against Tel Aviv to include closing Arab airspace to Israeli aviation until the aggression against the Palestinian people stops.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation had announced the holding of an emergency summit on Sunday, November 12, in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, to discuss the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, as the Israeli bombing of the Strip enters its second month.

In a statement by the organization last Monday, it was decided to hold an emergency summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on November 12, based on an invitation from Saudi Arabia, in its capacity as the current chair of the summit.

The statement stated that the summit will be held “next Sunday in the city of Riyadh with the aim of discussing the brutal Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people,” without further details.

On the twenty-eighth of last October, President Mahmoud Abbas had called for an emergency Arab summit to be held, but his request faced Arab reluctance and delay, so its date was set for the eleventh of this month. That is, after 15 days, in light of daily massacres carried out by the occupation in the Gaza Strip.