ANKARA

An Arab-Islamic ministerial committee called on the international community on Thursday to immediately intervene to pressure Israel to halt its assaults in the Gaza Strip and reopen the territory’s crossings.

The committee includes the foreign ministers of Türkiye, Palestine, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Indonesia, Nigeria and the secretaries-general of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

In a statement, the committee strongly condemned Israeli raids on Gaza and “their direct bombardment of areas populated by unarmed civilians, resulting in the deaths and injuries of hundreds of Palestinians."

"These raids constitute a clear violation of the ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip and a violation of UN resolutions (...) and international humanitarian law, which exacerbates the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip," it said.

More than 500 Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured in renewed Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip since Tuesday, shattering the ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement that took hold in January.

The committee warned that the Israeli assault “poses a serious threat to the security and stability of the region, and an escalation that increases the threat of a wider conflict in the region, undermining the efforts to deescalate tensions and achieve stability in the region."

It affirmed the urgent necessity of “a sustainable ceasefire in Gaza, end the Israeli escalation, resume dialogue, and ceasefire negotiations for the implementation of all the stages of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza."

Nearly 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children, and over 112,000 injured in a brutal Israeli military campaign in Gaza since October 2023.

In November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.