AhlulBayt News Agency: Foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have held an extraordinary session in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where they endorsed an Egyptian-proposed plan for Gaza reconstruction that runs counter to U.S. President Donald Trump's controversial proposal to take over the territory and displace its residents.
The OIC foreign ministers met on Friday as fears grew over the resumption of hostilities in Gaza after Israel stopped all humanitarian aid into the besieged territory last weekend to put pressure on Hamas to accept the extension of the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, instead of entering talks on the second phase that calls for a complete halt to hostilities and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territory.
In their final resolution, the foreign ministers of the Muslim countries “strongly” rejected and “unequivocally” confronted the plans “aimed at displacing the Palestinian people individually or collectively, inside or outside their land, or forced displacement, exile or deportation in any form, under any circumstance or justification, as ethnic cleansing, a grave violation of international law and a crime against humanity,” according to the text of the resolution published on the official website of the OIC.
The ministers also condemned “the policies of starvation and scorched earth aimed at forcing the Palestinian people to leave their land, and rejects any Israeli attempts to change the demographic composition of the Palestinian Territory.”
The OIC adopted Egypt’s plan on the early recovery and reconstruction of Gaza, which would also allow the 2.1 million Palestinians living there to remain in their homeland. The organization urged the international community to swiftly provide the necessary support for the plan which the ministers adopted three days after it was endorsed at an Arab League summit in Cairo.
The OIC emphasized that all those efforts “run in parallel with the initiation of a political process and a perspective for a lasting and just solution, aiming at achieving the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people to establish their own state and live in peace and security.”
The United States and Israel had rejected the initiative for the post-war reconstruction of Gaza, which is an alternative to Trump’s plan for the U.S. to take over the strip and permanently resettle its population.
Trump unveiled his plan early last month during a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington D.C., and has ever since doubled down on his proposal despite global outrage.
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