Pakistan on Thursday expressed its disappointment over the results of the emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) held on Wednesday and called for an immediate end to the bombardment and inhumane blockade of Gaza.
“We are nationally disappointed by the results of the UNSC debate. The Security Council should play its designated role to bring an immediate end to the bombardment and blockade leading to a humanitarian catastrophe,” the Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in her weekly press briefing.
The spokesperson was referring to the use of veto power by the United States at the UN Security Council to block a resolution calling for Israel to allow humanitarian corridors into the Gaza Strip, a pause in the fighting and the lifting of an order for civilians to leave the north of the besieged territory.
China, Russia and the UAE had convened the meeting to discuss the worsening situation in Gaza. The resolution, sponsored by Brazil, had wide support and would have also condemned all violence against civilians.
The vote in the 15-member Council was 12 votes in favour to one (United States) against, with Russia and China abstaining.
She said Pakistan did not believe in escalation but rather wanted a ceasefire and cessation of hostilities and called upon the international community to work together to ensure peace.
Asked whether Pakistan intended to send its troops to Palestine under any mandate, not to fight against Israel rather for maintenance of peace, the spokesperson said that Pakistan had no such plan. She said Pakistan had a peaceful posture and never started a war with any country and always called for dialogue to seek resolution of the issues.
She reiterated Pakistan’s condemnation on Israeli atrocities in Gaza particularly the recent attack on a hospital. She said the a deliberate attack on civilians constituted to war crimes. Spokesperson Mumtaz Baloch told the media that a chartered plane carrying 100 tons of humanitarian assistance including medical supplies, tents and blankets left for Egypt for their onward transportation to Gaza for the suffering Palestinian population.
She told the media that a briefing session was held for the diplomatic corps on the subject of the repatriation of illegal foreign nationals from Pakistan. She said an institutional mechanism has been developed to prevent the incidents of harassment and a helpline has also been established to address the complaints.
Meanwhile, Egypt agreed to reopen its border crossing with the Gaza Strip to allow aid to reach Palestinians, the US said, as the humanitarian crisis worsened for the 2.3 million people trapped in the enclave and anti-Israel protests flared across the Middle East. The region remained volatile in the aftermath of an Israeli air strike at Gaza’s Al-Ahli al-Arabi hospital late on Tuesday, which Palestinian officials said killed 471 people. The Gaza health ministry said 3,478 Palestinians have been killed and 12,065 injured in Israeli air strikes on the besieged enclave since Oct 7.
Demonstrations erupted in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Tunisia and elsewhere amid outrage across the Middle East over the hospital attack. Lebanese security forces fired tear gas and water cannons at protesters throwing projectiles near the US embassy in Beirut, TV footage showed.