JEDDAH, Wednesday, May 24, 2023 (WAFA) - The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Executive Committee today stressed the right of the State of Palestine to sovereignty over the occupied city of East Jerusalem. In the final communiqué of its open-ended extraordinary meeting at the headquarters of OIC General Secretariat in Jeddah to discuss the ongoing Israeli attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, OIC Executive Committee confirmed that Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif, with its entire area of 144 dunums, is a pure place of worship for Muslims, and that Jerusalem Endowments and the Al-Aqsa Mosque Affairs Department affiliated to the Jordanian Ministry of Awqaf, Islamic Affairs and Holy Sites is the legal authority with exclusive jurisdiction to manage all affairs of Jerusalem and organize access to it. It further affirmed the right of the State of Palestine to sovereignty over the occupied city of East Jerusalem, and that Israel, the occupying power, has no right nor sovereignty over the occupied city of Jerusalem and its Islamic and Christian holy sites. It also affirmed that Israeli ultra-far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir incursion into the al-Aqsa mosque and violation of its sanctity is a provocative step that is condemned in the strongest terms and represents a flagrant and unacceptable violation of international law and the existing historical and legal status in Jerusalem and its holy sites, and that it is a dangerous escalation that requires the international community, including the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), to work immediately to stop it through effective steps that would compel Israel, the occupying power, to stop its attacks on the Palestinian people and its violations of international law and international humanitarian law, and not to take any provocative steps in Jerusalem that would prejudice the feelings of millions of Muslims around the world and threaten security and stability in the region, stressing that there is no sovereignty for Israel over Jerusalem and the holy sites, and that East Jerusalem is an occupied Palestinian land. It condemned in the strongest terms the Israeli occupation government's setting a dangerous precedent by holding its meeting in a tunnel, one of the illegal Israeli excavations and tunnels network, located adjacent to the Western Wall of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a few days after it approved its sponsorship of the so-called condemned 'flags march' that stormed the neighborhoods of the Old City of AL-Quds under the protection of the occupation forces. It also affirmed that such provocative and illegal actions are null and void and have no legal effect. It underlined the importance of the continuation of concerted efforts of the Member States to protect the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Islamic and Christian holy sites in the occupied city of Jerusalem and to support the steadfastness of the Palestinian Jerusalemites in the face of aggressive Israeli policies and practices aimed at controlling the city, changing its original Arab character and identity, changing its existing historical and legal status, and imposing the temporal and spatial division on the mosque compound. It further affirmed support for the Hashemite Custodianship over the Islamic and Christian holy sites in AL-Quds and its role in protecting its Arab, Islamic and Christian identity. It called upon the international community and UNSC to put pressure on Israel, the occupying power, to stop Israeli violations, including colonial settlement expansion and all measures aimed at changing the legal and historical status quo in the mosque compound, which would push the situation in the region to further deterioration, holding Israel fully responsible for the results of its provocative and illegal actions. It stressed the need to activate efforts aimed at achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace on the basis of international law and relevant United Nations resolutions and the two-state solution that guarantees the establishment of an independent, sovereign, geographically contiguous and viable Palestinian state on the lines of 4 June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and to stop all illegal Israeli measures that undermine this solution. It appreciated the positions of the countries that expressed their rejection and condemnation of the provocative and aggressive Israeli incursion into the mosque compound, and which affirmed their positions refusing to change the existing legal and historical status of the Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.
Source: Palestine News & Information Agency