Middle East peace requires end to Israeli occupation: Arab summit

Leaders from 57 nations denounce Israeli crimes in Gaza, call for Palestinian state

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Arab and Muslim leaders on Nov 11 demanded that Israel withdraw from occupied Palestinian territories as a pre-condition for regional peace, while denouncing "shocking" Israeli crimes in war-ravaged Gaza.

A summit in the Saudi capital Riyadh gave the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation's 57 nations a chance to speak with one voice on the turmoil engulfing the region, more than a year into the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

It came less than a week after Donald Trump secured a second term as president of the US, Israel's top military backer.

The summit's closing statement said "a just and comprehensive peace in the region... cannot be achieved without ending the Israeli occupation of all occupied Arab territories to the line of June 4, 1967", referring to the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, Gaza and the Golan Heights.

The statement mentioned UN resolutions that have called on Israel to withdraw from these areas, and the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, in which Arab nations offered Israel normalized ties in return for a two-state agreement with the Palestinians along the 1967 lines.

The international community should "launch a plan with specific steps and timing under international sponsorship" to make a sovereign Palestinian state a reality, the statement said.

Hamas later urged Arab and Muslim nations to back up those pledges with action.