In his speech at the extraordinary session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in the Saudi city of Jeddah on Monday, Araqchi said to establish peace and ensure the complete withdrawal of occupying forces from Gaza, the Islamic countries must mobilize all political, economic, and legal tools, be it sanctions, boycotts, or coordinated international pressure against Israel.
He also called for accountability at every level, in every court, against all those who committed or enabled war crimes and genocide in Palestine.
Araqchi added: “Gaza stands like a shocking mirror before our collective conscience. What unfolds before our very eyes is the systematic destruction of a besieged people by a ruthless apartheid regime acting with complete impunity.”
The top Iranian diplomat pointed out: “The people of Gaza are being massacred in a premeditated manner; entire residential areas have been wiped out; hospitals have turned into graveyards; and children, in flagrant violation of every human standard, are trapped in famine and extreme hunger. This is not an ordinary war. It is collective punishment, a policy of domination, and yes, an onslaught bearing all the hallmarks of genocide.”
Araqchi reiterated: “Now the perpetrators of these crimes openly speak of their plans to impose full and permanent military control over Gaza. They talk of new enclosures, new buffer zones, and new expulsions, calling it “security”. But we know its real name: “ethnic cleansing”, a systematic effort to dismember a nation until nothing remains but their annihilation or exile.”
He said international law classifies starvation and indiscriminate bombardment as war crimes and crimes against humanity. At the same time, the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits targeting civilians, destroying homes, and forcibly displacing populations. This is the deliberate imposition of conditions designed to destroy a population, and it has only one name: genocide.
