UN PICTURE VIA PAK. MISSION
NEW YORK: Pakistan has urged the United Nations Security Council to take urgent and concrete measures to end what it called the “unimaginable suffering” of Palestinians in Gaza, warning that the humanitarian crisis has reached unprecedented levels.
Addressing a council meeting on the Middle East, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Asim Iftikharnsaid the situation was being watched “with disbelief” across the world.
“The greatest toll of Israel’s war has fallen on civilians. No justification can legitimize indiscriminate fire, starving an entire population, or collectively punishing a besieged people,” he told the meeting.
The ambassador stressed that such actions were not only morally indefensible but also “serious breaches of international law, including the Geneva Conventions,” and “clear violations” of binding rulings by the International Court of Justice.
Crisis at Breaking Point
Iftikhar said Gaza’s humanitarian emergency had reached “unmatched severity,” citing UN human rights experts who reported mass detentions, decades of systematic oppression, arbitrary arrests, and a total absence of accountability since October 7, 2023.
He noted that about 9,500 Palestinians – including hundreds of women and children – are being held in Israeli prisons, with one-third facing neither charges nor trial, calling it a grave violation of basic human rights.
Quoting The Washington Post, Iftikhar said 60,000 Palestinians have been killed since the conflict began, including 18,500 children. He also cited Israeli daily Haaretz, which described the situation in Gaza as “the most severe example in the 21st century of politically motivated starvation.”
At least 175 Palestinians, among them 93 children, have already died from hunger, according to UN data. The head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization has warned that Gaza is on the brink of full-scale famine — not due to a lack of food supplies, but because access to them has been deliberately blocked.
Pakistan reiterated its call for immediate Security Council action to halt the crisis and ensure accountability for violations of international humanitarian law.
