Riyadh
\nSaudi Arabia\u2019s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has accused Israel of carrying out \u201ccollective genocide\u201d in Gaza, in some of his strongest criticism of the country since the war began last year.
\nDuring a gathering of leaders of Islamic nations hosted by Saudi Arabia in Riyadh on Monday, the country\u2019s de facto leader said: \u201cThe Kingdom reiterates its condemnation and absolute refusal of the collective genocide committed by Israel against the brotherly Palestinian people.\u201d
\nThe crown prince, widely known by his initials MBS, also defended Iran, in stark contrast to his comments in 2017 comparing the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to Adolf Hitler.
\nMBS urged the international community to \u201ccompel Israel to respect Iran\u2019s sovereignty and not to attack (Iranian) territories.\u201d
\nSaudi Arabia has recently signaled more political involvement and policy shifts in support of the Palestinians.
\nLast year the kingdom was in the process of negotiating a historic normalization agreement with Israel but recently said that was \u201coff the table\u201d without Palestinian statehood, a demand rejected by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
\nIran sent its First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref to the Riyadh conference, who in his speech mourned the deaths of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas leaders Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar. Saudi Arabia strongly opposes Iran-backed militias such as Hezbollah and Hamas.
\nRiyadh and Tehran repaired ties last year after decades of animosity over regional influence.
\nThose attending the high-level meeting included Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Jordan\u2019s King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
\nPresidents Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Bashar al-Assad of Syria, who were also at the meeting, remain embroiled in an ongoing conflict over Turkey\u2019s military operations in northern Syria and its support for rebel groups.
\nThe stated goal of Monday\u2019s meeting was \u201cunifying positions\u201d and \u201cexerting pressure\u201d on the international community to take steps to end the \u201congoing attacks and establish lasting peace,\u201d in the region, Saudi\u2019s governmental state agency said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Riyadh Saudi Arabia\u2019s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has accused Israel of carrying out \u201ccollective genocide\u201d in Gaza, in some of his strongest criticism of the country since the war began last year. During a gathering of leaders of Islamic nations hosted by Saudi Arabia in Riyadh on Monday, the country\u2019s de facto leader said: …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":72917,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72947,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72936\/revisions\/72947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}