ISTANBUL

Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday urged the leaders of the world’s majority-Muslim nations to meet at the leadership level “without further delay” to help defend Palestinians and Jerusalem against Israel’s attacks, nearly a year into a relentless Israeli offensive that has taken some 41,000 lives.

“The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which is tasked with defending the cause of Jerusalem, cannot remain indifferent to these increasingly audacious attacks,” Erdogan said after a Cabinet meeting in the Turkish capital Ankara.

“It’s urgent for the organization to convene at the leadership level without further delay and to demonstrate the decisive stance of the Islamic world,” he added.

On Israel’s killing last week of Ayşenur Eygi, a dual citizen of Türkiye and the US, during a protest against illegal Israeli settlements near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, Erdogan said Ankara will take “every legal step” to ensure her blood “was not spilled in in vain,” including by appealing to the International Court at The Hague, which has already been investigating charges that Israel has been committing genocide.