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Ebrahim Raisi was speaking at a summit of Arab and Muslim leaders in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Saturday. He has arrived in Saudi Arabia to participate in the OIC summit, which aimed to discuss the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, The Times of Israel reported.

While Raisi urged the countries to Israel’s army a ‘terrorist group’, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) reportedly plans to maintain diplomatic ties with Israel.

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The UAE hopes to have some moderating influence over the Israeli campaign, while safeguarding its own interests, four sources familiar with UAE government policy told Reuters.

Abu Dhabi became the most prominent Arab nation to establish diplomatic ties with Israel in 30 years under the US-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020. That paved the way for other Arab states to forge their own ties with Israel by breaking a taboo on normalising relations without the creation of a Palestinian state, Reuters reported.

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The Israel-Hamas war has stirred outrage in Arab capitals. Israel launched a war against Palestinian military group Hamas on October 8. This was a day after the military group, that governs the Gaza Strip, launched cross-border attacks in southern Israel.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was welcomed back in the Arab League earlier this year, are among those who attended the summit.

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Arab countries divided

Earlier, Hamas called on the summit to take “a historic and decisive decision and move to stop the Zionist aggression immediately”, Reuter reported.

“We call on Arab and Muslim leaders… to put pressure on the American administration, which bears direct responsibility in the genocidal war that our people are facing in the Gaza Strip,” a statement from the Palestinian militant group said.

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Arab foreign ministers, who held an emergency meeting On Thursday to prepare for the summit, were divided as some countries, led by Algeria, called to cut all diplomatic ties with Israel, two delegates told Reuters.

A bloc of Arab countries, which have established diplomatic relations with Israel, pushed back, stressing the need to keep channels open with Netanyahu’s government, they said.

(With inputs from AFP)

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Updated: 11 Nov 2023, 07:02 PM IST