UNS: Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has called for the declaration of an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza, the opening of a humanitarian corridor and urged the international community to hold Israel accountable for its military offensive in the besieged enclave.
Dar arrived in The Gambia on Wednesday to represent Pakistan at the 15th Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit in Banjul on May 4 and 5. Besides attending the OIC summit, the newly appointed deputy prime minister will also hold bilateral meetings with dignitaries from the member countries.
The October 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas and the ensuing Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health ministry figures, obliterated much of the enclave’s infrastructure and created a humanitarian crisis verging on famine. About 1,200 people in southern Israel were killed in the October 7 attack
Addressing the Preparatory Meeting of Foreign Ministers on Thursday, ahead of the 15th Session of the OIC’s Islamic Summit Conference, FM Dar emphasised the need to implement UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2728 to cease hostilities and demand Israel to halt settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories and relinquish all Palestinian properties.
He expressed Pakistan’s “deep concern” about the ongoing “genocide and starvation of Gaza people” and called for the reactivation of the OIC’s Ministerial Committee on Israeli aggression against the Palestinians, offering Pakistan’s assistance to the body.
The deputy prime minister reaffirmed Pakistan’s full support for the Palestinian people’s “inalienable right to self-determination” and stated that the only permanent solution to the crisis lay in the creation of a “secure, viable, contiguous, and sovereign state of Palestine based on the pre-June 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital”.
