JEDDAH - The Organisation for the Islamic Conference called Sunday for the creation of a committee of legal experts to prosecute Israeli officials responsible for the attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla. "The judicial path must be given ample attention in our quest for justice and lifting oppression from our brothers in the besieged Gaza Strip," said Secretary General Kamal el-Din Ihsanoglu of Turkey at a meeting of OIC members' foreign ministers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The OIC called the emergency meeting to coordinate a response to Israel's raid last Monday on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla carrying 700 humanitarian activists and 10,000 tons of aid. Nine activists, most of them Turks, were killed during the incident. Israel's attack on the flotilla "in international waters, in defiance of international law, requires an impartial international inquiry that is independent, credible, and up to international standards," Ihsanoglu said. Iran, an OIC member, said it would put forth proposals for solving the crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip during the meeting. "Iran has constructive proposals it will present today. If they are approved, the crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip would be lifted," Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Mottak said in a statement upon his arrival in Jeddah. In response to the attack on the flotilla, Egypt opened its border crossing at Rafah to allow people with documents for entry to other countries and aid to pass back and forth from Gaza.
