No punitive measures against Israel in Arab League declaration

The Arab League has called for a UN peacekeeping force in the Palestinian territories and an international peace conference at a summit in Bahrain but failed to approve punitive economic and political steps against Israel.

In a concluding statement following a meeting in Manama, the 22-member grouping called for "international protection and peacekeeping forces of the United Nations in the occupied Palestinian territories" until a two-state solution is implemented.

It also adopted calls by host Bahrain's King Hamad and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas to "convene an international conference under the auspices of the United Nations, to resolve the Palestinian issue on the basis of the two-state solution".

In its reactions, the United States said that a UN peacekeeping force in the Palestinian territories could compromise Israel's effort to defeat Hamas resistance group but stopped short of opposing it.

The meeting of Arab heads of state and government convened in Bahrain more than seven months into the conflict in Gaza that has convulsed the wider region.

Israel has waged a brutal invasion on Gaza since Hamas' October 7 blitz on Israeli military and settlements that were once Arab villages and farms.

Hamas says its raid that surprised its arch-enemy was orchestrated in response to Israeli attacks on Al Aqsa Mosque, illegal settler violence in occupied West Bank and to put Palestine question "back on the table."

The hours-long attack and Israeli military's haphazard response resulted in the killing of more than 1,130 people, Israeli officials and local media say.

Palestinian fighters took more than 250 hostages and presently 130 remain in Gaza, including 34 who the Israeli army says are dead, some of them killed in indiscriminate Israeli strikes.

Genocidal war

Israel has since then killed more than 35,000 Palestinians — majority of them babies, women and children — and wounded nearly 80,000 amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities. Israel has imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, starving.

In the occupied West Bank, nearly 500 Palestinians have been killed and thousands wounded since October 7, along with daily arrest by the Israeli occupation army.

Some 85 percent of Gaza's population of 2.4 million Palestinians have fled their homes since the start of Israeli invasion, with many forcibly displaced multiple times.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which has ordered Tel Aviv to ensure that its forces do not commit acts of genocide and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in the enclave.

It was the first time the bloc had come together since an extraordinary summit in Riyadh, capital of neighbouring Saudi Arabia, in November that also involved leaders from the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation [OIC], based in the Saudi city of Jeddah.

Soaring death toll of Palestinians since then and repeated rejection of ceasefire calls by Israel had raised the possibility that the final declaration out of Thursday's summit could include "binding" measures targeting Tel Aviv.

While in November, leaders declined the approval of punitive steps against Israel, Kuwaiti analyst Zafer al-Ajmi told the AFP news agency the meeting in Manama differed from recent summits.

Western public opinion has become "more inclined to support the Palestinians and lift the injustice inflicted on them" since Israel's creation more than 70 years ago, Ajmi said.

Hamas called on Arab countries to "compel" Israel to end its offensive in Gaza after Arab heads of state meeting in Bahrain demanded an "immediate and permanent ceasefire".

In a statement, the Palestinian resistance group urged "brotherly Arab states to take the necessary measures to compel the (Israeli) occupation to stop its aggression."

Saudi Arabia, one of the powerful countries in the League and home to the holiest sites in Islam, has never recognised Israel and did not join the 2020 US-brokered so-called Abraham Accords that saw its Gulf neighbours Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates as well as Morocco establish formal ties with Israel.