Morocco says ready to deliberate petition to halt normalization with Israel

The Moroccan government said Wednesday that it is ready to deliberate a petition calling for halting normalization with Israel.

The government "is ready to deliberate the petition," government spokesman Mustafa Baytas said following a cabinet meeting.

Human rights activists announced plans to submit a petition demanding the government halt normalizing relations with Israel.

A petition is one of the means for Moroccans to urge the government to adopt public policies or cancel agreements. A government committee looks into any submitted petition to either accept or reject it, according to Moroccan law.

Any petition must be signed by 5,000 people to be considered by the committee.

"Petitions are organized by the 2011 constitution, which grants citizens this opportunity to express their opinions about development issues or to request the enactment of legislation and laws," Baytas said.

Morocco was the fourth Arab country to agree to normalize ties with Israel in 2020 after the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.

Israel has pounded the Palestinian enclave since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, killing at least 23,357 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 59,410 others, according to local health authorities. Around 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas offensive.

About 85% of Gazans have been displaced, while all of them are food insecure, according to the UN. Hundreds of thousands of people are living without shelter, and ⁠less than half of aid trucks are entering the territory than before the start of the conflict.