FM Qureshi in his speech at UNGA said that the Israelis are bombing Gaza indiscriminately and it needs to be stopped
Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi asked the UN Security Council (UNSC) to stop Israel’s military onslaught against Gaza which has seen hundreds killed including dozens of children. Calling Israel’s current actions a genocide, Qureshi urged the UN to send a protection force for the Palestinians. He also agreed with Palestinian President Mehmood Abbas’s call for an international conference to secure a peaceful settlement.
He emphasized that the killings of the Palestinians need to stop. “As we speak, people in Palestine are being killed with impunity. Death echoes in every home in Gaza. [The enclave] is plunged in darkness literally and metaphorically; the only light is of Israeli explosions,” Qureshi said.
Qureshi also mentioned that the Israeli forces even did not hesitate in taking down a building that was housing large media houses in the region.
“This is Palestine where, in full view of the world, Israeli airstrikes bring down entire buildings to kill and terrorize innocent Palestinians and even silence the media,” he said.
Pakistan calls for joint action
Pakistan demanded these actions at UNGA:
- Halt Israeli aggression against innocent Palestinians hoping that UNSC would call for the cessation of Israel’s attacks as there is no moral or military equivalence between beleaguered Palestinian people and the Israeli war machine.
- The world should mobilize all possible humanitarian help (including medical supplies) for the devastated Palestinian population in Gaza & other parts of occupied territories. UN should launch a comprehensive humanitarian assistance plan for Gaza.
- UNGA should call for concrete steps to protect the #Palestinians. We should deploy an international protection force, as was called for in General Assembly Resolution ES-10/20 and as demanded by the Islamic Summit Conference on 18 May 2018.
- UNGA should condemn Israel’s forcible/illegal eviction of Palestinians, the onslaught against Palestinian worshipers in Al Aqsa Mosque, and Israel’ss brutal/indiscriminate bombing of Gaza. Israel’s crimes against humanity should not escape accountability.
- Revive concrete efforts to end Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories and to dismantle the illegal settlements that the apartheid-like regime Israel has imposed in the occupied territories. Implementation of UN resolutions is critical
Time to protect Palestinians
The foreign minister out rightly called Israel the military occupier. He hinted towards the UNGA resolution 2649 which deals with the oppressed people under the colonial and illegal domination.
“This is a war between a military occupier and an occupied people. It is a war between an illegal occupation and a legitimate struggle for self-determination,” Qureshi said. “It is time to say enough. The voice of the Palestinian people cannot and will not be silenced. We, the representatives of the Islamic world, are here to speak with them and for them.”
“We must not fail the Palestinian people at this critical juncture,” Qureshi stressed and expressed the hope that the UN’s Security Council will call upon the Israelis to stop the attacks.