African Union calls for halting cooperation with Israel and holding it accountable for genocide against Palestinians

The leaders of the African Union countries called for an end to all forms of cooperation with Israel, in accordance with international resolutions condemning the occupation’s practices, and accused it of committing genocide against the Palestinians, calling for it to be held internationally accountable for its violations of international law, including targeting civilians and infrastructure.

This came at the conclusion of their summit on Sunday in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, of the member states of the African Union. In its final statement, the Union expressed its full support for Palestine obtaining full membership in the United Nations. The African summit also strongly condemned the Israeli war on Gaza, describing it as a barbaric aggression.

The summit participants called on the international community to intervene urgently to stop the "humanitarian catastrophe facing the Palestinian people, and to lift the siege imposed on the Strip immediately."

The summit accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians, calling for it to be held internationally accountable for its violations of international law, including targeting civilians and infrastructure.

The final statement stressed the African Union's firm support for the Palestinian people's right to self-determination, calling for the immediate release of all Palestinian prisoners, especially women and children, and the need to end the occupation and withdraw completely from the territories occupied in 1967.

The African summit stressed that the political solution based on the two-state solution is the only way to ensure stability in the region, calling on the international community to make greater efforts to achieve a just and comprehensive peace that ends the suffering of the Palestinians.

A draft resolution submitted to the meetings of African foreign ministers, which took place last Tuesday and Wednesday, called on the African Commission to deploy a humanitarian assessment team in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to be voluntarily contributed by the member states of the Union, “to assess the humanitarian situation, and coordinate and facilitate the provision of humanitarian assistance to those affected by the conflict in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.”

The draft, which is not the final statement of the summit, calls on the member states of the Union to implement a gradual approach, individually and collectively, to ensure the freedom of movement of persons in the African continent, as well as to take appropriate measures to enable freedom of movement, and to make room for broader social and economic integration in Africa. The draft decisions also called on countries to ratify the Union Protocol on the free movement of persons in the continent.

Source: Al Jazeera