ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has condemned Israeli’s attempt at “forced displacement” of Palestinians by ordering them to relocate to the west of Gaza and demanded international community press Israel to cease hostilities and its occupation of Palestinian territories, Pakistan’s permanent mission to the United Nations said on Saturday.
Israel issued a fresh warning to Palestinians in the southern city of Khan Younis to relocate west out of the line of fire and closer to humanitarian aid, in the latest indication that it plans to attack Hamas in south Gaza after subduing the north.
Such a move could compel hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled south from the Israeli assault on Gaza City to relocate again, along with residents of Khan Younis, worsening a dire humanitarian crisis. Khan Younis has a population of more than 400,000.
Pakistan's United Nations Ambassador Munir Akram addresses the UN meeting, during a debate on Israeli actions in Gaza at UN headquarters on November 17, 2023. (Photo courtesy: UN)
On Friday, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Munir Akram, made a statement on behalf of a group of countries at the informal plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly on the Gaza situation.
“We firmly reject and condemn any attempt at the forced displacement of the Palestinian civilian population and the illegal evacuations and relocations inside Gaza and consider it a grave violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and its 1977 Protocol,” the Pakistan mission to the UN quoted Akram as saying in a post on X.
Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas that controls the Gaza Strip following an Oct. 7 rampage into Israel in which its fighters killed 1,200 people and dragged 240 hostages into the enclave.
Since then, Israel has bombed much of Gaza City to rubble, ordered the depopulation of the entire northern half of the enclave and left around two-thirds of the strip’s 2.3 million Palestinians homeless.
Many of those who have fled fear their displacement could become permanent. Gaza health authorities have raised their death toll to more than 12,000 people, 5,000 of them children.
The Pakistani representative called on the international community and concerned countries not only to promptly address the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, compelling Israel to cease its occupation and hostilities, put an end to atrocities, guarantee unimpeded access to humanitarian aid, and accelerate the prompt delivery of vital supplies to Gaza, but also to ensure that those responsible are held accountable for their criminal acts against the Palestinian people.
The countries on whose behalf the statement was made are Algeria, Bolivia, China, Cuba, Egypt, Eritrea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Nicaragua, Nigeria, the Russian Federation, Sri Lanka, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe.
