ISLAMABAD: The head of a prominent Pakistani religious party, the Jamiat Ulama-e-Islam Pakistan (JUI-F) on Wednesday urged the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to invite Hamas representatives as observers to its upcoming summit in Riyadh.
The OIC announced earlier this week it would hold an extraordinary summit in Riyadh on Sunday at Saudi Arabia’s invitation. The summit would discuss the “brutal Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people,” it said.
JUI-F head Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman met Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Mashal in Qatar on Sunday to show solidarity with the people of Palestine amid the ongoing hostilities.
“When I met the Palestinian leadership in Qatar, they had the same demand: that the OIC [summit] should be called,” Rehman told foreign media reporters during a briefing in Islamabad.
“I will add that the representatives of Hamas should be allowed to participate in this as observers, because without listening to their opinion, this meeting may not be able to be completed according to its agenda.”
The JUI-F chief thanked Saudi Arabia for convening the OIC summit in a timely manner. He warned that if Israel was not stopped today, it would advance on to other Muslim countries and capture their territories as well.
He called on Islamic countries to forge unity within their ranks, adding that the Palestinian leadership had a lot of expectations from Pakistan.
“During our meeting, Hamas leaders said Pakistan's stance is very courageous and expressed high hopes [it would] play an important role during this conflict as the only atomic power of the Islamic world,” Rehman shared.
Rehman urged the world to take notice of the “genocide” in Palestine. He criticized western countries for standing by Israel despite its atrocities in the Middle East.
“The surprising thing is that the United States, Britain, and other European countries who called themselves the champions of human rights have brought their troops to support Israel in this brutality,” he said.
“Despite the fact that they are not engaging Hamas’ fighters, instead, are directly bombarding Gaza.”
Rehman lamented that Palestinian women, children and ordinary citizens were being killed by Israeli bombardment. He said even schools and hospitals were being bombed, and markets were being destroyed.
More than 10,300 Palestinians have been killed since Oct. 7, according to Palestinian officials, with the majority of them being women and children. At least 58 percent of all residential units in Gaza have been damaged, or 212,000 homes, officials say.
Without fuel and electricity, hospitals have been working on solar-powered generators. Hundreds of thousands remain at risk of diseases amid a severe shortage of medicines and relief items in the territory.
