PM Shehbaz arrives in Riyadh to attend Arab-Islamic Summit on Gaza
Pakistan
Prime Minister Shehbaz was warmly received by Prince Muhammad bin Abdul Rahman bin Abdulaziz
RIYADH (APP) – Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif Sunday arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to represent Pakistan at the Arab-Islamic Summit.
Upon his arrival at Riyadh’s Royal Airport Terminal, Prime Minister Shehbaz was warmly received by Prince Muhammad bin Abdul Rahman bin Abdulaziz, the Deputy Governor of Riyadh, along with Pakistan’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia and other senior diplomatic staff.
Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar and Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Tariq Fatemi are also accompanying the prime minister.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in his post on X wrote “…I will join the leaders of the Muslim Ummah at the Joint Arab Islamic Summit being convened to discuss the rapidly deteriorating situation in Gaza and speak with one voice for the rights of the Palestinian people and reaffirm our collective call for regional peace”.
Meanwhile, Arab and Muslim leaders have begun arriving in Saudi Arabia for a summit scheduled for Monday that will focus on Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon, Saudi state media said.
According to Al Arabia News, the Saudi foreign ministry announced the summit in late October during the first meeting of an “international alliance” pushing for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The participants will “discuss the continued Israeli aggression on the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, and the current developments in the region,” the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said on Sunday.
The summit is being held one year after a similar gathering in Riyadh of the Cairo-based Arab League and the Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) during which leaders condemned Israeli forces’ actions in Gaza as “barbaric.”
Saudi foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan heads the preparatory ministerial meeting for the extraordinary Arab and Islamic summit ahead of Monday’s session.
On Sunday, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan presided over the preparatory ministerial meeting for the extraordinary Arab and Islamic summit ahead of Monday’s session.
The war in Gaza erupted with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7 last year, which resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed more than 43,600 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to data from the health ministry.
Lebanon-based Hezbollah, which like Hamas is backed by Iran, began firing on Israel after the October 7 attack.
The regular cross-border exchanges escalated in late September when Israel intensified its air strikes before sending ground troops into southern Lebanon against Hezbollah.
