Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
The Collective Voice of The Muslim World
Date: 01/03/2016
The 5th Extraordinary Islamic Summit on Palestine and Al-Quds Al-Shareef under the theme: “United for Just Solution” will be held in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, on 6-7 March 2016. This comes against the backdrop of unprecedented Israeli violations in the occupied city of Al-Quds (Jerusalem), the West Bank and of the unjust blockade on the Gaza Strip. The two-day summit with start with a preparatory meeting of senior officials on 6 March. This will be followed by a meeting of foreign ministers, with the outcomes of the first day of deliberations forwarded to the leaders of the OIC member states on 7 March 2016. The Jakarta declaration will be issued at the end of the summit. The summit will address several issues, notably the developments in Al-Quds Al-Shareef and the scheme by Israel, the occupying power, to change the demographic reality of the city and erase its Islamic and Arab identity by building and expanding settlements and other measures that undermine the vital sectors of Al-Quds Al-Shareef. Israeli violations of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque will top the agenda of the summit, which will also discuss Israeli measures aimed at emptying the blessed Al-Aqsa of Muslim worshipers by strengthening security presence, preventing renovation of its facilities, repeated closure of its gates to Muslim worshipers, and attempts to adopt a plan to divide the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque temporally and spatially by allowing extremists to gain access to the courtyard of the Mosque. The summit will also discuss a whole range of developments in the Palestinian territory, particularly settlement expansion, which shows that the number of settlers on occupied Palestinian lands has exceeded 700,000 as of 2015. More than half of these are living in 145 settlements and other pockets of shanty settlements established on lands in the occupied West Bank. Among the urgent issues that will be addressed at the summit is the international support for resuming negotiations that emphasizes the legitimate Palestinian rights and puts a time table to ending occupation, in addition to supporting efforts for forming a Palestinian national unity government and enable it to carry its responsibilities and perform its role in meeting the needs of the Palestinian people. The comatose economic condition in the Palestinian territories is a key part of the items slated for discussion, including the deteriorating state of the West Bank which is reeling under an illegal Israeli blockade making it impossible for sufficient quantities of basic commodities to get into the Strip.
Related: Alquds
