On Sunday, the Gulf Cooperation Council called on the United States to shoulder its responsibility by responding to all Israeli measures and statements targeting the Palestinian people.
This came in a joint message sent by the foreign ministers of the Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Emirates, Kuwait, the Sultanate of Oman and Bahrain) to their American counterpart Anthony Blinken, according to a statement of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
“The foreign ministers of the GCC countries sent a joint message to the US Secretary of State,” said the Secretary-General of the Council, Jassim Muhammad Al-Budaiwi, in the statement.
Al-Budaiwi added, “The letter called on Washington to assume its responsibilities in responding to all Israeli measures and statements that target the Palestinian people.”
The letter urged the US administration to do its part to reach a just, comprehensive and lasting solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict based on the principles of international law and the Arab peace initiative, including the right of the Palestinian people to establish their state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, according to Al-Budaiwi.
He pointed out that the letter “condemned the statements of the Israeli Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, calling for the removal of the Palestinian town of Hawara (in the northern West Bank) from existence, and his statements that deny the reality of the existence of the Palestinian people.”
On March 20, Smotrich, the leader of the far-right “religious Zionism” party, claimed in a meeting with supporters of Israel in Paris that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people,” according to Hebrew media.
In previous statements, the same Israeli minister called for “erasing the Palestinian town of Hawara” in the West Bank, but he came back and offered a shy apology for this statement.
Al-Budaiwi pointed out that the letter included praise for the American position rejecting the Israeli statements that target the Palestinian people.
He stated that “the letter embodied the positions of the leaders of the Gulf states regarding the issue of Palestine, as it is the first issue of Arabs and Muslims.”
He stressed “the Gulf Cooperation Council’s condemnation of the escalating Israeli statements and violations against the Palestinian people, including the crimes committed recently in the West Bank, which claimed the lives of a number of martyrs and dozens of wounded.”
The Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council condemned “Israel’s violation of the sanctity of Al-Aqsa Mosque, its targeting of the Palestinian presence in the city of Jerusalem, and attempts to change its legal nature and demographic composition.”
And on Saturday night, the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, reported that an Israeli police force stormed, late on Saturday evening, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, “suppressing the worshipers in the Al-Qibli prayer hall and expelling them by force.”
She added, “The occupation forces arrested citizens who were in retreat inside the chapel, and forced all those in retreat to exit through the Chain Gate, and tried to seize their cell phones.”
This comes as tensions escalate sharply throughout the occupied West Bank for months, amid repeated Israeli military raids on Palestinian towns.
According to Palestinian data, about 90 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the beginning of this year, while 15 Israelis were killed in separate attacks during the same period.
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