Special Correspondent
UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has voiced grave concern over the deteriorating situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, urging the international community to ensure accountability for violations of international law.
Speaking at a United Nations Security Council meeting on the Middle East and the implementation of Resolution 2334, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, said council members had expressed deep concern over developments in the occupied Palestinian territories and emphasized the need for accountability.
He said Israeli settlement expansion and escalating settler violence in the occupied West Bank had reached unprecedented levels. Citing the UN Secretary-General’s report, the ambassador noted that the approval or advancement of 4,750 housing units represented a deeply alarming trend.
Ambassador Ahmad warned that the E-1 settlement project poses a serious threat to the territorial continuity of a future Palestinian state and undermines the viability of the two-state solution. He also criticized the withholding of Palestinian Authority revenues, saying it weakens Palestinian institutions and hampers governance.
Highlighting the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the Pakistani envoy said more than 90 percent of the population is facing severe humanitarian hardship. He added that despite the ceasefire, 981 Palestinians, including women and children, have reportedly been killed.
He described the recent report by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory regarding the targeting and killing of Palestinian children as a serious indictment that requires full accountability.
Reaffirming Pakistan’s long-standing position, Ambassador Ahmad called for an immediate halt to all Israeli settlement activities, an end to annexation, home demolitions and forced displacement, and the release of withheld Palestinian revenues.
He also reiterated Pakistan’s demand for an immediate, permanent and comprehensive ceasefire in Gaza, stressing that a sovereign, independent and contiguous Palestinian state based on the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, remains the only viable path to lasting peace in the region.
