- FO spokesperson urges world to call for an immediate end to Israeli hostilities against Gazans
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday condemned Israel’s deliberate targeting of health facilities in Gaza, describing its announcement of taking control of the entire territory as a “grave threat” to regional peace, according to the Pakistani Foreign Office statement.
“The expansion of Israeli ground operations in Gaza as well as the announcement to ‘take control of all’ of Gaza poses a grave threat to efforts aimed toward achieving peace and stability in the region,” Foreign Office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan said.
“Pakistan condemns in the strongest possible terms the continued Israeli aggression in Gaza as well as deliberate targeting of hospitals and other critical infrastructure along with mass evacuation orders.”
Last week, Israeli airstrikes pounded Gaza’s European and Nasser hospitals, causing casualties and crippling medical services. Days later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel would take full control of the Gaza Strip.
The FO statement said that Israel’s continued obstruction humanitarian aid from reaching to millions of people in the Palestinian enclave, was amounting to an “imposition of collective punishment” on the Palestinian people.
It highlighted UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ statement in which he voiced alarm over the situation in Gaza, where one in every five people faces starvation and the rest of the population is at risk of famine.
The FO spokesperson urged the world to call for an immediate end to Israeli atrocities and take steps for the provision of humanitarian supplies to Palestinians.
“Furthermore, Pakistan reiterates its unequivocal opposition to any attempts to displace the Palestinians from their ancestral lands, expand illegal Israeli settlements or to annex any part of the territory,” the FO statement stated.
