OIC Press Release

Today marks the painful memory of the attempted, treacherous Israeli arson of the Holy Mosque of Al-Aqsa. This commemoration coincides, this year, with the escalation of the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, affecting all fields of human endeavor in the occupied Palestinian territories. There, Israel is committing daily crimes against the Palestinian people, besides the comprehensive, hermetic siege imposed both within and without the Palestinian territories, including those it reoccupied and cut-off from each other by means of hundreds of military barriers. More, it clamped a curfew to paralyze the Palestinian population of those areas against whom it applies the policy of collective sanctions, preventing all kinds of food and medicines from arriving. As a result, life in those territories has deteriorated to the extent of heralding a humanitarian disaster caused by Israel's violation of all international covenants and norms and indulging in the killing of Palestinian civilians, the demolition of the latter's homes and institutions, the detention of thousands from amongst them and the deportation of scores of others.

This commemoration comes at a painful time when the Holy City of Al-Quds Al-Sharif is going through harsh circumstances due to the suffocating siege imposed upon it by Israel which surrounds it with trenches and barbed wire and deprives worshippers from reaching their religious shrines and sanctuaries. All that apart from the attempts to judaize the holy city by aggressing and desecrating its religious shrines, closing its national institutions and seizing homes belonging to the Palestinians, as part of a ploy to empty the city of its original inhabitants and have them replaced by Jewish colonial settlers in colonies whose legitimacy has been challenged and denied by the entire world.

On every occasion, the OIC has affirmed that Israel's path of constant aggression and belligerency would never lead to the peace and security aspired for. On the contrary, it can only be conducive to more bloodshed and further deterioration and instability in the region. The world is, therefore, urged to shoulder its responsibilities in compelling Israel to put an end to its aggression, pull out its forces from the positions, cities and villages it occupied, return to the peace process, in accordance with the principles that served as a springboard for it, and based on the resolutions and decisions of the international legitimacy and enable the Palestinian people to exercise their inalienable national rights foremost among which is the right to return and set up an independent Palestinian state with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as the capital.

As we mark the day, the OIC reiterates the immutable stance regarding the Arab and Islamic nature of the Holy City of Al-Quds and, once again, invites the member states to keep on lending their support and backing to the Palestinian people in their just struggle for freedom and independence under their legitimate leadership.