In a statement read by Habib Salem Saqqaf al-Jifri, Vice President of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, during a press conference on Tuesday, the conference warned that the continued Israeli aggression on Gaza and the systematic starvation could lead to a widespread popular uprising among Muslim and other peoples.
The conference, which began last Friday, will continue until August 29, and will conclude with the reading of the final statement following Friday prayers at the Hagia Sophia Mosque in Istanbul.
The conference, held under the theme "Gaza: An Islamic and Humanitarian Responsibility," will be held on the "Island of Democracy and Freedom" in the Sea of Marmara in Istanbul, and is organized by the International Union of Muslim Scholars and the Islamic Scholars Foundation of Türkiye.
The statement emphasized the need to immediately and comprehensively halt political and economic relations with Israel, withdraw ambassadors, and halt all forms of normalization. It also emphasized the need to support the Palestinian resistance legally, politically, and legally, and to recognize its full right to defend its land and people.
The conference also called for the formation of high-level official Arab and Islamic delegations to exert diplomatic pressure on international parties and take urgent action at the United Nations and the Security Council to halt the aggression on Gaza, noting that the dominance of five countries on the Security Council hinders any just military intervention.
The conference emphasized the importance of the Islamic countries' initiative to establish a unified economic and military alliance to defend Gaza and Al-Aqsa Mosque. It considered this a serious and only option to deter Israeli aggression, given the failure of condemnation and waiting statements to halt the attacks.
The conference warned that the repeated incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Judaization plans, and the temporal and spatial division of the mosque, in addition to the excavations under the mosque, constitute a religious, cultural, and humanitarian catastrophe that threatens the region.
He pointed out that the continuation of these violations could lead to an explosion of the situation and delegitimize any political guardianship or appeasement.
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The conference called on media and Islamic institutions to expose Israeli crimes in multiple languages and to establish the Palestinian narrative as the sole truth, with a focus on the media martyrs in Gaza who were killed while documenting the occupation's crimes.
He also stressed the need to activate the role of popular, community, student, and trade union movements as an alternative in the absence of official positions, transforming initiatives into legally and human rights-based actions, and activating human rights and judicial fronts to prosecute the occupation in international and national courts.
On the other hand, the conference called for the launch of a permanent Islamic fund for the reconstruction of Gaza, the provision of legal protection for facilities and projects within the Strip, and urgent support for the Palestinian economy.
The conference emphasized the need for academic and political bodies to adopt a charter of support for the Palestinian resistance, and to include the issues of Jerusalem and Palestine in educational curricula to instill awareness of the cause as an ideological issue.
He also called for organizing high-level visits to the Vatican, Al-Azhar, and global religious leaders to support the Palestinian cause, forming a global legal alliance to prosecute Israeli war criminals before international courts, and mobilizing parliaments from the Islamic world and around the world to take joint action in support of Palestine.
The conference affirmed at the end of its statement that "abandoning Palestine means opening the door wide open to Greater Israel."
Since October 7, 2023, Israel, with American support, has been committing genocide in Gaza, leaving 62,819 Palestinians dead, 158,629 wounded, most of them children and women, more than 9,000 missing, hundreds of thousands displaced, and a famine that has killed 303 Palestinians, including 117 children, as of Tuesday.
