Thousands participate in JI’s rally in solidarity with Palestine

LAHORE: Thousands of people on Sunday (November 19) demonstrated in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and condemning Israeli attacks during a rally in Pakistan’s second biggest city Lahore.

Waiving Palestinian flags, they listened to speeches by members of one of the country’s major Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), which also criticised the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for not doing enough to protect Muslim Palestinians against Israel’s offensive.

Gaza’s Hamas-run government said at least 13,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli bombardments since then, including at least 5,500 children.

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Saudi Arabia last week hosted a summit on Gaza. The kingdom had been scheduled to host two extraordinary meetings, of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League over two days but opted for a joint summit because of the “extraordinary” Gaza situation, the Saudi foreign ministry said.

During the meeting Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries called for an immediate end to military operations in Gaza, rejecting Israel’s justification of its actions against Palestinians as self-defence.

The extraordinary joint Islamic-Arab summit in Riyadh urged the International Criminal Court to investigate “war crimes and crimes against humanity that Israel is committing” in the Palestinian territories, according to a final communique.

At the meeting President Joko Widodo of Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest Muslim population, said the a way must be found to make Israel cease fire immediately, before adding: “The OIC must use all fronts to hold Israel accountable for the humanitarian atrocities it has committed.”

And Qatar’s emir said his country, where several Hamas leaders are based, was seeking to mediate the release of Israeli hostages and hoped a humanitarian truce would be reached soon.

In Lahore, the JI said the meeting did not do enough to find solutions to protect Palestinians in Gaza.