In a statement on its website, the OIC said: “At the invitation of Saudi Arabia, the Executive Committee of the Organization… “An extraordinary meeting has been called at the ministerial level to address the situation.”
OIC is the second largest organization after the United Nations with a membership of 57 countries spread across four continents. It calls itself “the collective voice of the Muslim world”.
The call for an urgent OIC meeting came a day after Saudi Arabia suspended talks with Israel over a possible normalization of ties.
Hamas launched a massive attack on Israel on October 7, in which 1300 people were killed. Israel then launched a retaliatory bombing campaign, killing at least 2,215 people in the Gaza Strip ahead of a possible Israeli ground attack on the area.
“Saudi Arabia has decided to stop discussions on possible normalization and has informed US officials about this,” a source familiar with the discussions told AFP news agency.
The most holy places of Islam are in Saudi Arabia. It has never recognized Israel and has not joined the 2020 US-brokered Abraham Accords, in which Morocco, along with its Gulf neighbors Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, established formal relations with Israel.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has been working hard in recent months to get Saudi Arabia to take a similar step.
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