By Clauda Tanios
DUBAI (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia has formed a global alliance to push for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the country’s foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said on Thursday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York.
The alliance includes a number of Arab and Muslim countries and European partners, the Saudi state news agency reported, without specifying which countries had committed to join.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on X the first meetings would be in Riyadh and Brussels.
After the eruption of the Gaza war last October between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas that rules Gaza, Saudi Arabia put on ice U.S.-backed plans for the kingdom to normalise ties with Israel, two sources familiar with Riyadh’s thinking said earlier this year.
“Implementing the two-state solution is the best solution to break the cycle of conflict and suffering, and enforce a new reality in which the entire region, including Israel, enjoys security and coexistence”, bin Farhan was quoted as saying.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said last week the kingdom would not recognise Israel without a Palestinian state and strongly condemned the “crimes of the Israeli occupation” against the Palestinian people.
Israel and Hamas have been waging war since gunmen from the Palestinian militant group in the Gaza Strip stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing some 250 hostages, by Israeli tallies.
Israel responded with a military offensive in Gaza in which more than 41,500 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza health authorities. Israel says it will press on with its intensified campaign against Lebanon’s Hezbollah, after nearly a year of cross-border fire in parallel with the Gaza war.
(Reporting by Clauda Tanios; Editing by Ros Russell)
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