Turkiye’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that he is “pleased” with the results of a “fruitful” meeting between United States President Donald Trump and Arab and Muslim leaders on ending Israel’s war on Gaza.
The positive sentiment was echoed by Trump, who said Tuesday’s meeting with “all of the big players except Israel” on the sidelines of the 80th United Nations General Assembly in New York, had been “successful”, as Israel continues to relentlessly bombard Gaza City, kill dozens of Palestinians daily, and forcibly displace tens of thousands to an unknown fate.
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No details, however, have yet been published on the meeting, attended by leaders of Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye and the United Arab Emirates, which were billed by Trump as “the group that could do it”.
Trump, who was expected to present a plan on ending the war, wants Arab and Muslim countries to agree to send military forces to Gaza to enable Israel’s withdrawal and to secure funding for transition and rebuilding programmes, according to US-based media outlet Axios.
The Emirati state news agency WAM said on Wednesday that the meeting had been focused on ending the ongoing war in Gaza and reaching a permanent ceasefire, adding that the release of captives and addressing the worsening humanitarian crisis were discussed as priorities.
Israel reportedly had no involvement in the plan under discussion, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been made aware of the details. It is believed to envisage some future involvement by the Palestinian Authority, something Israel has repeatedly said it will not tolerate.
The plan sees no role for Hamas, which the US and Israel have demanded must be disarmed and eliminated.
‘The one man who can change things’
Leaders met on the margins of a summit dominated by the global outcry against Israel’s war on Gaza, with a wave of diplomatic recognitions of the Palestinian state and demands that the two-year war that has killed at least 65,382 people be brought to a swift end.
The summit saw the US, Israel’s chief arms supplier, which has traditionally acted as its diplomatic shield at the UN and beyond, appear increasingly isolated in its condemnation of other countries’ endorsement of Palestinian statehood, offering little indication that it might apply pressure on Tel Aviv to stop the war.
Trump had indicated in his marathon speech to the assembly that the endorsement by France, Britain, Canada, Australia, Portugal and others served to “encourage continued conflict” by giving Hamas a “reward for these horrible atrocities”, calling for an “immediate” end to the war without acknowledging the gravity of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
His words were in contrast to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s, who said at a meeting on the two-state solution on Sunday that statehood for Palestinians “is a right, not a reward”.
Reporting from New York, Al Jazeera’s Diplomatic Editor James Bays said, “There is a feeling, certainly among diplomats here at the UN, that sometimes in the White House, President Trump is only getting one side of the story.
“Israel has one supporter in the UN Security Council, one supporter providing the money, one supporter providing the weapons. And that supporter is the United States. And so … the key man, the one man that can change things, is Donald Trump,” Bays said.
Speaking at the start of the meeting, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani said, “We count on you and your leadership … to end this war and to help the people of Gaza”, describing the situation in Gaza as “very bad”.
Earlier, Sheikh Tamim, who has led efforts to broker a comprehensive ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and saw his country attacked by Israel as it hosted Hamas leaders discussing the latest US ceasefire proposal, underlined the urgency of the situation. He said Israel’s real objective was “to destroy Gaza, to render housing, livelihoods, education, and medical care impossible, stripping away the very foundations of human life”.
Before the meeting, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto told a UN conference on a two-state solution to the conflict hosted by France and Saudi Arabia on Monday that his country is ready to provide peacekeeping forces in Gaza.
