Riyadh Summit: No peace in the Middle East without Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories

Leaders of Arab and Muslim countries meeting in Saudi Arabia on Monday called on Israel &to withdraw completely from the Arab territories it occupies in order to achieve a "comprehensive" peace in the Middle East.

“A just and comprehensive peace in the region (…) cannot be achieved without ending the Israeli occupation of all the territories occupied” since 1967 – when Israel began occupying the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan – “and this in accordance with UN resolutions and the Arab Peace Plan of 2002”, states the summit's final declaration.

This joint summit of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, hosted by regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia, calls for the unity of all Palestinian territories – the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank – within a Palestinian state, whose capital it reaffirms must be East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel.

The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas has urged Arab and Muslim countries to implement the declarations made at their summit and force Israel to stop its “aggression.”

“The affirmation of the national rights of our people, the first of which is the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, requires immediate efforts and practical solutions to force (Israel) to stop its aggression and genocide against our people,” Hamas wrote.

The Riyadh summit, devoted to the situation in the Middle East, represented an opportunity for its participants to set out their expectations for the future administration of US President-elect Donald Trump.

During his first term, the latter had multiplied gestures in favor of Israel, notably by transferring the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but also contributed to the normalization of its ties with Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan, via the Abraham Accords. Until then, among the 22 countries of the Arab League, only Egypt and Jordan maintained formal relations with Israel.

The Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu is hostile to the so-called two-state solution, bringing together Israeli and Palestinian states to resolve the decades-old conflict, desired by most of the international community.

A Palestinian woman amidst destruction in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip after an Israeli strike, on November 10, 2024 © AFP – Omar AL-QATTAA

Wanting to establish a Palestinian state is not “today” a “realistic” project, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Monday. “A Palestinian state (…) will be a Hamas state,” he said.

– “Crime of genocide” –

The summit participants also “strongly condemned” the actions of the Israeli army, which they described as “a crime of genocide (…) particularly in the northern Gaza Strip in recent weeks”, where the Israeli army has been waging a deadly offensive since October 6.

They called on the international community to “prohibit the export or transfer of arms and munitions to Israel” and condemned “the continued attacks by the Israeli authorities (…) against the UN”.

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas' unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.

The offensive launched by Israel to wipe out the Palestinian Islamist movement has left more than 43,600 dead, according to data from Hamas' Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN, plunging the besieged Gaza Strip into a humanitarian disaster.

The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, warned of the “high probability of famine” in the north of the Palestinian territory, speaking out against “the use of hunger as a weapon of war”.

Israel has also been waging open war in neighbouring Lebanon against Hezbollah since 23 September.

Lebanese attend the funeral in Tyre, southern Lebanon, of rescue workers affiliated with Hezbollah and the Shiite Amal movement killed by Israeli strikes, November 11, 2024 © AFP – KAWNAT HAJU

Israeli strikes on Monday killed at least seven people, “mostly women and children,” in Saksakieh, southern Lebanon, and at least eight others in the village of Ain Yaacoub in the north, targeted by a rare raid so far from the border with Israel, the Health Ministry said.

According to a Lebanese security source, the strike in the north targeted a member of Hezbollah, part of a family displaced from southern Lebanon.

– Irano-Saudi warming –

“The world is waiting” for the future Trump administration to “immediately” end the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said in Riyadh.

He called the assassinations of the leaders of Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah “organized terrorism” on the part of Israel.

Earlier, Saudi Arabia's de facto leader Mohammed bin Salman said Israel should “refrain from attacking” Iran, amid exchanges of strikes and threats between the two countries.

The Saudi crown prince has called Iran a “sister republic,” a sign of warming relations between the two regional rivals, who ended a seven-year feud in 2023.

A photo provided by the Saudi news agency SPA on November 11, 2024 shows Saudi Deputy Governor of the Riyadh Region Prince Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Abdulaziz (right) welcoming Iranian Vice President Mohammed Reza Aref to Riyadh ahead of an Arab-Muslim summit © SPA – –

This rapprochement “creates a very different regional environment” from that of the first term of Donald Trump, believes H.A. Hellyer, of the Royal United Services Institute in London.

– “Long-term war” –

Enemy of Israel, Iran supports Hezbollah, Hamas and the Yemeni Houthi rebels.

A Palestinian policeman walks past a mural of the late Palestinian historic leader Yasser Arafat, in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on November 11, 2024, on the 20th anniversary of Arafat's death © AFP – HAZEM BADER

The Houthis announced a new attack on Monday against a military base in Israel, with the army confirming it had intercepted a missile coming from Yemen.

Hezbollah, which claims daily shelling of northern Israel, has said it is “ready for a long war.”

A woman walks past buildings destroyed by Israeli strikes south of Beirut, November 11, 2024 © AFP – Anwar AMRO

After Mr. Saar reported “some progress” towards a ceasefire in Lebanon, conditional on the neutralization of Hezbollah, his colleague from Defense, Israel Katz, excluded it without “capitulation” of the Lebanese Islamist movement.

In the Gaza Strip, the Civil Defense reported five Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes in Nousseirat (center) and Jabalia (north).

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