Iyad Madani, secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC); Nizar Obaid Madani, minister of state for foreign affairs; and Samih Shukri, Egyptian foreign minister, at a meeting in Jeddah, Thursday. — Okaz photo Khaled Tashkandi and Hassan Baswaid Okaz/Saudi Gazette The world's largest Muslim bloc Thursday urged the international community to force a halt to Israel's barbaric aggression on Gaza that has killed more than 80 Palestinians in three days. An extraordinary meeting of the executive committee of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) decided to form a ministerial team to lobby the UN Security Council and world powers to halt the Israeli aggression. The 57-member OIC said it would also push for an urgent meeting of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva to investigate the crimes of Israel and its violations of the rights of Palestinians." "Israel has violated all international and human conventions," said Nizar Obaid Madani, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, who chaired the meeting at OIC headquarters. He urged the international community, represented by the UN and UNHRC, to take urgent steps to protect unarmed Palestinians from Israeli aggression. Madani also called for classifying Israeli extremist groups as terror outfits and apply all international rules pertaining to combating terror to these groups. “The international community must shoulder its responsibility of taking all legal measures to stop Israeli attacks on Gaza and punish it for continuing crimes against the Palestinian people.” The foreign ministers also directed the group of OIC ambassadors in Geneva to lobby for holding an emergency session of UNHRC in order to form an international panel to probe Israel's heinous crimes and blatant rights violations. The meeting urged OIC Secretary General Iyad Madani to direct the ministerial contact group to approach major world powers to halt Israeli aggression. It also called on the international community to stop the arbitrary detention of Palestinians that reached more than 800 over the last few days following the abduction and killing of three young settlers. Addressing the session, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Maliki said that the murder of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khudair shows the intensity of cruel and barbaric practices being pursued by Israel against Palestinians. “Abu Khudair was forced to drink benzene and then set on fire first in his mouth and the body. The Israeli barbaric crimes are part of a policy of massive collective punishment,” he said. The executive committee is comprised of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Senegal, Turkey, Guinea and Kuwait.
