Arab, Muslim leaders head to Riyadh for talks on Gaza, Lebanon wars

Arab and Muslim leaders have begun arriving in Saudi Arabia for a summit scheduled for Monday that will focus on Israel's deadly onslaughts in Gaza and Lebanon, Saudi state media said.

The Saudi foreign ministry announced the summit in late October during the first meeting of an "international alliance" pushing for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Attendees will "discuss the continued Israeli aggression on the Palestinian territories and the Lebanese Republic, and the current developments in the region," the official Saudi Press Agency said on Sunday.

It comes one year after a similar gathering in Riyadh of the Cairo-based Arab League and the Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) during which leaders condemned Israeli forces' actions in Gaza, which have killed over 43,000 Palestinians, as "barbaric".

The Saudi state-affiliated Al-Ekhbariya news channel broadcast footage on Sunday of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati landing in Riyadh.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was also scheduled to attend, the Pakistani foreign ministry said last week, adding that he planned to call for "an immediate end to the genocide in Gaza" and the "immediate cessation of the ongoing Israeli adventurism in the region".

The 57-member OIC and 22-member Arab League include countries which have diplomatic relations with Israel and those firmly opposed to its regional integration.

Last year's summit in Riyadh saw disagreement on measures like severing economic and diplomatic ties with Israel and disrupting its oil supplies.

Israel began waging its military offensive in the Gaza Strip on October 7 last year, following Hamas' cross-border attack on southern Israel.

Israel's brutal onslaught has killed at least 43,603 people in Gaza, amid atrocities labelled as genocide by UN agencies, NGOs and some world leaders.

Famine is also looming in many parts of Gaza - particularly the north - as Israel carries out an offensive labelled as 'General's Plan', which has been described as an ethnic-cleansing campaign to rid the area of its residents.

Israel has also been engaging in cross-border fire with Lebanon's Hezbollah for over a year, a war in Lebanon, intensifying its aggression in late September, before invading in early October. At least than 3,186 people have been killed in the country since.