Muslim Bloc Condemns Israel

• On the night of 17–18 June 2026, Israeli settlers set fire to two mosques north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank and left Hebrew graffiti behind. Israel's own military confirmed the arson and said it condemned such acts.
• The foreign ministers of eight Muslim states (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Qatar, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt and Türkiye) issued a joint statement on 18 June. It held Israel, "as the occupying power," responsible and demanded the perpetrators face justice.
• Pakistan signed on through its Foreign Office, one of the eight. No separate solo statement from the prime minister or the foreign minister was reported.
• Separately, Israel's Diaspora Affairs Minister, Amichai Chikli, told an Israeli radio station that a "Türkiye-Qatar-Pakistan axis" had helped shape the new US–Iran deal, and called it a dangerous bloc. Türkiye, Qatar and Pakistan did not respond.
• This eight-state grouping is a recurring format. The same eight issued a near-identical statement over an Al-Aqsa Mosque incident just over two weeks earlier.
• The violence has not stopped. On 20 June, Israeli attacks killed at least five people in Gaza, four from one family, amid what the reports called continued ceasefire violations. Pakistan raised the humanitarian crisis in Gaza at an emergency UN Security Council meeting.

Since 1 August 2026

• On 4 August, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation issued another condemnation, this time naming "the targeting of healthcare facilities, residential buildings and tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip" and warning of "continued escalation of Israeli colonial settlement activity." It called for UN Security Council Resolution 2803 to be implemented, including reopened crossings and a full Israeli withdrawal.
• On 7 August, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement in Mecca. An attack on one is to be treated as an attack on all three. The full text has not been published. See [Mecca Trilateral Defence Pact](/topics/mecca-defence-pact) for that story on its own terms.
• Pakistan's defence minister, Khawaja Asif, then tied the pact to Israel. He said Israel "poses a threat to all of us" and that "Islamic countries must adopt a coordinated approach to address this threat," and called Israel "a product of the Balfour Declaration, which was established in the 1940s as an illegitimate state." He also said the pact "should not be an exclusive club."
• The signatories' official line is different. Türkiye told the Associated Press the agreement is not aimed at Iran or any other country. Saudi deputy minister Rayed Krimly said it is not an attempt at a military axis or a sectarian bloc.
• Israel's government did not issue an official statement on the pact. Netanyahu's office instead attacked Asif, saying his "call for Israel's annihilation is outrageous" for a government claiming to be a neutral peace broker. Netanyahu's office had used the same charge in April 2026 over a since-deleted Asif post.
• Events on the ground moved the other way. On 9 August, Israeli settlers began moving into a new settlement, Emek Dotan, on land in the town of Arraba in the northern West Bank, part of a plan for 19 new settlements. The same day Netanyahu rejected the US-backed 15-point Gaza plan, saying Israel will not withdraw until Hamas is "genuinely" disarmed.

Everyone agrees on the sequence. Mosques were burned in June and eight Muslim states condemned it. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation condemned Israel again on 4 August. Three days later three of those states signed a mutual defence pact in Mecca. And Israel has kept building in the West Bank and has refused to leave Gaza. The dispute has shifted with the story. In June the argument was whether a joint statement meant anything. Now it is whether the pact is the bloc's condemnation posture finally acquiring hardware, or the same posture with better staging. That question is sharpened by a split inside the bloc itself: Pakistan's defence minister says Israel is a threat to all Muslim states and asks them to coordinate, while Saudi Arabia and Türkiye say in as many words that the agreement is aimed at no country at all. Both cannot be the bloc's position. The loudest read at home is the triumphant one, carried across Pakistani front pages and Turkish outlets, with Saudi landmarks lit in three flags. In the Israeli press the loudest thread is not the pact but Asif's language, and Israel's government has said nothing official about the agreement itself, which is a strange gap if a hostile alliance had just formed. Online reaction in Pakistan and the Gulf has run heavily to celebration, and reaction in Israeli commentary to alarm, though we are not putting numbers on that here because we could not verify engagement counts for any specific post. Two things the loud coverage skips. Nobody has explained what the pact would oblige any signatory to do about Israeli action in Gaza or the West Bank, which is where the bloc's condemnations are actually directed, and the answer on the published text is nothing. And the cheapest part of the whole posture goes unexamined: Pakistan has no diplomatic relations with Israel, so naming Israel a common threat costs Islamabad nothing bilaterally and plays well at home, while Saudi Arabia, which is still being courted for normalisation, is careful to say the opposite.