New York — The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has issued a forceful appeal to the United Nations Security Council, demanding immediate intervention to halt what it called Israel’s “systematic genocide” against the Palestinian people in Gaza, warning that global institutions are “failing catastrophically” in the face of mass suffering.
Speaking on behalf of the 57-member bloc during a special Security Council debate on the Middle East on Wednesday, Türkiye’s Deputy Foreign Minister and UN representative Ahmet Yildiz tore into the Council’s “paralysis,” citing what he described as calculated Israeli Genocide in Gaza and war crimes and a deliberate policy of “mass starvation, ethnic cleansing and population transfer.”
Yildiz, representing Türkiye in its current capacity as chair of the OIC, said the assault on Gaza was not merely another humanitarian crisis, but rather “a moral collapse of the international system,” noting that more than 61,200 Palestinians have been killed and over 2 million displaced in less than a year of war.
“This is not a conflict,” he told the chamber. “It is a slaughterhouse — supervised by global indifference, protected by vetoes, and financed by Western weapons.” His remarks came as part of an open debate on “The Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Question.”
Yildiz described the Israeli campaign as an intentional policy aimed at driving out indigenous Palestinians to permanently alter the demography of Gaza and the occupied territories. “This is not just collective punishment — it is the slow erasure of a people,” he said, urging the Council to take meaningful action under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which permits coercive measures to restore international peace and security.
The OIC, he emphasized, views Israel’s actions as “not only war crimes but crimes against humanity,” and reiterated its call for a full arms embargo, the deployment of international protection forces, and prosecution of Israeli officials at the International Criminal Court. He also urged UN member states to recognize the State of Palestine and enforce the two-state solution by diplomatic means, not just hollow declarations.
The remarks were a direct challenge to the United States, which has repeatedly vetoed resolutions targeting Israel at the Security Council. Yildiz called on all permanent members to act with “moral clarity” and “not allow history to remember them as complicit.”
The debate unfolded amid growing global fatigue and outrage over Israel’s ongoing siege of Gaza, where civilian infrastructure has collapsed, famine is spreading, and reconstruction remains non-existent. Aid organizations warn that the humanitarian situation is nearing total collapse, with UN officials repeatedly blocked from accessing entire areas of northern Gaza.
Yildiz also warned that continued inaction will deepen instability across the Middle East, noting that the war in Gaza has already inflamed tensions in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, where Iranian-aligned resistance groups have pledged to escalate attacks if Israel’s military campaign continues unabated.
“If the Council does not stop this genocide,” Yildiz concluded, “then it has no moral standing, no legal credibility, and no relevance.”
According to the full statement released by Türkiye’s mission to the UN and Anadolu News Agency, the OIC statement characterized the situation in Gaza as “a calculated strategy aimed at forcibly displacing the indigenous Palestinian civilian population, in violation of all norms of international and humanitarian law.”
