OIC rejects Trump’s Gaza plan as ethnic cleansing, crime against humanity
Muslim nations endorse reconstruction proposal
Foreign ministers from Muslim nations on Saturday rejected widely-bashed calls by US President Donald Trump to forcibly displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and backed a plan for an administrative committee of Palestinians to govern and reconstruct the war-ravaged territory.
The foreign ministers gathered in the Saudi city of Jeddah for a special session of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to address the situation in Gaza.
In a statement put out Saturday, the gathering threw its support behind a plan to rebuild Gaza put forward by Egypt and backed by Arab states aimed at countering Trump’s call.
The ministers said they rejected “plans aimed at displacing the Palestinian people individually or collectively … as ethnic cleansing, a grave violation of international law and a crime against humanity.” They also condemned “policies of starvation” that they said aim to push Palestinians to leave.
Trump triggered global outrage last month when he suggested the US “take over” Gaza and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” while forcing its Palestinian inhabitants to relocate to Egypt or Jordan.
Speaking on Friday at an extraordinary meeting of the OIC foreign ministers, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi strongly rejected the US bids “to forcibly relocate the population of Gaza,” calling it a “clear violation of international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
He stressed that any attempt to alter the “demographic and cultural fabric of the occupied Palestine” is inadmissible and contrary to the principles of justice and international law.