Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister has announced an “international alliance” to press for Palestinian statehood, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, AFP reports.

Prince Faisal bin Farhan said the “International Alliance to Implement the Two-State Solution” included Arab and Islamic countries, as well as European partners, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) said, without giving details.

A senior official of the Saudi-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) told AFP that the new coalition “consists mainly of Islamic and Arab members of OIC plus some European countries”.

“There will be meetings in Arab and European countries to discuss the practical execution of the initiative and a conference later this year in Riyadh,” added the official, who asked to remain anonymous.

Prince Faisal said the nearly year-long Israel-Hamas conflict, which has left 41,534 people dead according to Gaza’s health ministry, could not be justified by Israel as “self-defence”.

“Self-defence cannot justify the killing of tens of thousands of civilians, the practice of systematic destruction, forced displacement [and] the use of starvation as a tool of war,” Prince Faisal told a ministerial meeting on the Palestinian crisis, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, SPA said.