UNITED NATIONS
\nPakistan told in a UN meeting that an immediate ceasefire was critical to meet immense needs in the besieged Gaza, and called on Israel to stop its ongoing \u2018genocide\u2019 of Palestinian people.
\n\u201cWe cannot mince our words; we have to tell the Israelis: stop the genocide,\u201d Ambassador Munir Akram said during a briefing on the \u2018Humanitarian Situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.\u2019
\nUN Humanitarian Coordinator Martin Griffiths, fresh from the war-torn region, and Lynn Hastings, Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, were among those who briefed the member states about the latest developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both officials called for humanitarian ceasefires to ensure safe delivery of food, fuel and other essential items.
\nIn his remarks, the Pakistani envoy said that the Israelis, having suffered the Holocaust, were now committing the \u2018modern genocide\u2019 against the Palestinians, and \u2018we must call it for what it is\u2019. In this regard, he called for respecting and adhering to the international humanitarian law that forbids attacks on civilians and civilian objects.
\n\u201cLet us, as the international community, adhere to what the General Assembly has said. Let us adhere to what the international humanitarian law says,\u201d Ambassador Akram said. \u201cThis is what we expect from all those who are leading the United Nations, all those who are speaking for the conscience of the international community.\u201d
\nThe Pakistani envoy said that the deadly Israeli strikes against schools, hospitals and civilian sites in Gaza on the pretext that there were military targets in those facilities were a gross violation of international law and norms as well as a \u2018collective punishment\u2019 of a helpless people. \u201cWhere does international law justify this?,\u201d Ambassador Akram asked, pointing that under the terms of that law civilian sites and facilities, especially the hospitals, cannot be targeted.
\n\u201cEven if there was a target, a military target that which is not proven; How did the Israelis ever prove that any of the schools that they (Israelis) have bombed; any of the hospitals that they have destroyed; any of the refugee camps which they have bombarded, has Israel proved that there was a military target remotely? There they are doing this as collective punishment,\u201d he added.
\nResponding to Canadian Envoy Robert Rae\u2019s call for a humanitarian truce, Ambassador Akram said that the General Assembly has already called for a truce, leading to the cessation of hostilities.
\nBut, he said that a call for a humanitarian \u2018pause\u2019 to allow the Israelis to stop for five minutes and then bomb the Palestinians again, was contrary to international humanitarian law; to the obligations of international humanitarian law, a violation of the obligation that they have undertaken as parties to all the international humanitarian conventions \u2013 a violation by taking that position.
\nThe Pakistani envoy also countered Canada\u2019s call for the release of Israeli hostages, but not the thousands of Palestinians arbitrarily arrested and kept in Israeli prisons, saying, \u201cTalk about that, too.\u201d
\nThe briefing session opened with a moment of silence for all those who have lost their lives since the start of the conflict on October 7 and those being held against their will in the region.
\n\u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen unfold over the last 26 days in Israel and in the Occupied Territories is nothing short of what I think I would call a blight on our collective conscience,\u201d said Griffiths, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator. \u201cAll of us, we are all somehow involved in this.\u201d
\nGriffiths recalled that 1,400 Israelis have been killed and nearly 9,000 Palestinians have lost their lives, though the true number will only be known after the rubble is cleared in Gaza. The desolation there reminded him of the early days of the Syrian war \u201cwhere we saw towns like Homs razed to the ground\u201d.
\nMore than 1.5 million people are now displaced and nearly 600,000 are crowded in shelters run by the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees, UNRWA, which has lost 72 staff members. He believed this marked the highest loss ever of UN staff in conflict.
\nThe UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the region warned that the situation will only deteriorate if hostilities continue. Hastings, Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said four UNRWA shelters hosting nearly 20,0000 displaced people were hit on Thursday.
\nAlthough people are sheltering under the UN flag, \u201cthe reality is we cannot even provide them safety under a UN flag,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve had over 50 of our facilities that have been impacted by the conflict, including five direct hits. I think at last count 38 people have died in our shelters. I fear that with the fighting going on in the north right now, that number is going to grow significantly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNITED NATIONS Pakistan told in a UN meeting that an immediate ceasefire was critical to meet immense needs in the besieged Gaza, and called on Israel to stop its ongoing \u2018genocide\u2019 of Palestinian people. \u201cWe cannot mince our words; we have to tell the Israelis: stop the genocide,\u201d Ambassador Munir Akram said during a briefing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364739,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2437],"class_list":{"0":"post-366145","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-munir-akram"},"yoast_head":"\n