Arab leaders and Iran’s president are in the Saudi capital Saturday for summits expected to underscore demands that Israel’s war in Gaza end before the violence draws in other countries.

The emergency meetings of the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation come after Hamas militants’ bloody October 7 attacks that Israeli officials say left about 1,200 people dead and 239 taken hostage.

Israel’s subsequent aerial and ground offensive has killed more than 11,000 people, mostly civilians and many of them children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Aid groups have joined pleas for a ceasefire, warning of a humanitarian “catastrophe” in Gaza, where food, water and medicine are in short supply.

The Arab League aims to demonstrate “how the Arabs will move on the international scene to stop the aggression, support Palestine and its people, condemn the Israeli occupation, and hold it accountable for its crimes”, the bloc’s assistant secretary-general, Hossam Zaki, said this week.

But Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad on Friday said it did not “expect anything” from the meeting, criticising Arab leaders for the delay.

“We are not placing our hopes on such meetings, for we have seen their results over many years,” Mohammad al-Hindi, the group’s deputy secretary-general, told a press conference in Beirut.

“The fact that this conference will be held after 35 days (of war) is an indication of its outcomes.”

Israel and its main backer the United States have so far rebuffed demands for a ceasefire, a position that is expected to draw heavy criticism during Saturday’s meetings.

A united “diplomatic front… will generate diplomatic pressure from Arab and Muslim states,” said Saudi analyst Aziz Alghashian.

Criticism from regional leaders so far indicates “that this is not just about Israel-Palestine — this is about what is facilitating Israel to do this, which is basically the United States and the West”, he added.

That clash has been on display during US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent visits to the region, as well as during a stop this week in Riyadh by British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, who met with a number of his Arab counterparts who have called for a ceasefire.

“What we have said is that calling for a ceasefire is understandable, but what we also recognise is that Israel is taking action to secure its own stability and its own security,” Cleverly said on Thursday.

“Of course we want to see this terrible situation resolved as quickly as possible. The immediate challenge is the humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza. That’s why we are focusing on that.”

– Raisi to Riyadh –

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s expected attendance at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation meeting will be his first trip to Saudi Arabia since the two Middle East heavyweights reached a surprise rapprochement deal in March, ending seven years of severed ties.

Iran backs Hamas as well as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Huthi rebels, placing it at the centre of concerns the war could expand.

The conflict has already fuelled cross-border exchanges between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, and the Huthis have claimed responsibility for “ballistic missiles” the rebels said targeted southern Israel.

Analysts say Saudi Arabia feels vulnerable to potential attacks because of its close ties with the Washington and the fact that it was considering normalising ties with Israel before the war broke out.

Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Friday condemned “continued violations of international humanitarian law by the Israeli occupation forces,” his first public comments on the war, though Riyadh has levelled similar criticism in multiple statements.

Kim Ghattas, author of a book on the Iran-Saudi rivalry, said during a panel organised by the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington that “the Saudis are hoping that the fact they didn’t normalise yet, and the fact that they have a channel to the Iranians, gives them some protection.”

“And I think the Iranians are hoping that the fact that they’re in touch with the Saudis and maintaining that channel, that it gives them some protection too.”

Like most others his age, Uriel Balas was just excited to celebrate his 26th birthday with friends, having saved up for his ticket to Israel’s much-anticipated Supernova music festival.

But excitement would soon give way to horror.

The two-day festival in the fields around Kibbutz Reim, just beyond the Gaza border in southern Israel, drew more than 3,000 people on October 6 and 7.

Nearly one in 10 people would never come back.

Balas scrolled through his last photos from the party, showing his friends giving a thumbs up and the festival in full force.

It was 6:00 am (0400 GMT) and the young Israeli and his friends were enveloped in the ecstatic fog of the party.

“Sunrise is the moment everyone waits for. Everyone lets loose, and the party begins,” he told AFP in an interview in his apartment in Tel Aviv.

“Suddenly, we went from the party to complete vulnerability under missile fire,” he said, describing dozens of rockets launched by Hamas flying over the dance floor.

It marked the start of the Hamas attack that would see 1,400 people killed, mostly civilians, in the worst attack on Israel in its 75-year history, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel has responded with an assault on Gaza that has killed over 11,000 people in just over a month, among them more than 4,000 children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.

‘Everything is fine’

That day, as festival security asked everyone to evacuate, Balas’s group staggered back to their car.

They had hoped to find an after party in Tel Aviv — before the first shots fired by Hamas militants’ automatic rifles sobered them up to a brutal reality.

“In the car, my friend and I held each other’s hands and repeated ‘everything is fine'” between swigs of gin, he said.

But the shots were getting closer.

They tried erratically to escape the fire in their car, before “we realised we were surrounded”.

They needed to change course and abandoned the car.

“We started to run through a field and I could hear bursts of gunfire behind me and zipping past my ears,” he said, mimicking the whistling sound of bullets.

“You see people falling right in front of you,” he said, noting that there were “hundreds of us” in the field.

“I told myself that this is it — today I leave this world, today I die,” he said.

Become invisible

Reaching an orange orchard, Balas climbed a bushy tree to hide, with one thought on his mind: how to become invisible in the foliage.

“I pushed my white socks inside my boots, and took off my rings.”

He tried to make himself “as small as possible”, staying in his hiding place for two hours, helpless to stop the “incessant shooting” under him.

Curled up between two branches, he focused on his breathing to calm his trembles which were shaking the leaves and betraying his position.

“A terrorist will come, scream, and shoot me like a toy,” he thought, praying for a shot to the head so he “wouldn’t suffer”.

When the shooting started to fade into the distance, he began running among the bodies, away from the festival, finding other survivors hiding in the bushes.

They hid behind a car, in the trunk of which two bodies lay lifeless, as a man convulsed beside them, bleeding to death.

The police took their call but, overwhelmed and helpless, wished them “good luck” before hanging up.

It was 9:00 am (0700 GMT) by then, and help “took several hours” more to arrive.

When they were eventually evacuated, he was crammed in a vehicle with 10 other people, while a policeman aimed his rifle out the window.

‘Laughter and crying’

According to rescue services and the Israeli army, other than the hostages taken, more than 260 people were killed at the festival.

Since the beginning of the war, Balas has tried to keep himself focused on his job delivering food, but he has been smoking heavily, and can sleep only with antianxiety medication.

When he finally returned to his mother’s house on October 7, a neighbour filmed his arrival.

His shirt torn, he stumbled “between laughter and crying”.

Two hours later, he said he felt “an indescribable anger and anxiety”.

Balas says he was exhibiting post-traumatic shock: the inability to live in the moment after having come so close to death.

“I lost part of my optimism there, as well as my sense of safety… Even when I’m home, how can I know that terrorists won’t come here?”

“I also lost some of my faith in human beings, in humanity,” he said.

But he promised to respond to his attackers in his own way: “To go back to partying as soon as possible.”

Members of the Pawar family, including NCP leader Sharad Pawar, gathered for a Diwali lunch at his brother’s residence in Pune. Ajit Pawar, who was recently diagnosed with dengue, also attended the celebration. Sharad Pawar expressed happiness over Ajit’s improving health. After the gathering, Ajit Pawar left for Delhi to meet with Union Home Minister Amit Shah. NCP leader Supriya Sule, Sharad Pawar’s daughter, stated that there were no personal differences within the family and that Ajit Pawar required post-dengue care. Despite their political differences, the family maintains strong ties.