GAZA CITY, Palestine 

The Palestinian resistance group Hamas called Sunday on the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to hold an urgent meeting on Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.

It emphasized the need to "make effective decisions that lead to halting the aggression and ongoing genocide against our people in the Gaza Strip and to cut any political, commercial or normalization relations with the Zionist occupation."

Hamas also called for "the implementation of the decisions made at the joint Arab and Islamic summit which took place in Riyadh on Nov. 11 last year to break the siege and deliver aid and relief to our besieged people in the Gaza Strip."

In addition, it called on the UN Security Council to "hold an emergency session and make a decision that obliges the occupation (Israel) to stop the aggression and genocide and to cease its blatant violations of laws and treaties, which have become an effective recipe for destabilizing regional and international security and peace.”

Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas.

The Israeli onslaught has since killed nearly 39,800 people, mostly women and children, and injured over 92,000 others, according to local health authorities.

More than 10 months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala