As heavy Israeli bombardments continued to hit the Palestinian enclave on Thursday, Pakistan strongly condemned the \u201cindiscriminate and disproportionate\u201d use of force by Israeli authorities against the civilian population in Gaza and called for an immediate cessation of hostilities. Foreign Office (FO) Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahrah Baloch said in her weekly press briefing that Pakistan was deeply concerned by the fast deteriorating and dire humanitarian situation in Gaza due to the \u201cinhumane blockade and collective punishment by Israeli forces\u201d. The statement comes after Israel imposed a \u201ctotal siege\u201d to stop food and fuel from reaching the enclave of 2.3 million people, many poor and dependent on aid in response to a surprise Hamas offensive on Saturday that left 1,200 Israelis dead, according to officials. In retaliatory air and artillery strikes, Israeli forces have flattened entire neighbourhoods, hospitals and schools in Gaza, killing 1,200 Palestinians since Saturday, and displacing more than 338,000. Yesterday, electricity went out after the only power station stopped working. The FO spokesperson said that the decision to cut off electricity, fuel and water supplies was \u201cunjust and should be reversed as it would severely impact the lives of millions of people in the enclave\u201d. \u201cThe current cycle of aggression and violence is a sad reminder and a direct consequence of over seven decades of illegal foreign occupation, aggression and disrespect for international law, including UNSC resolutions that recognise the inalienable right to self-determination of the Palestinian people,\u201d she added. The FO spokesperson said Pakistan had been constantly warning against serious consequences of Israel\u2019s \u201cescalatory and provocative actions in recent months\u201d. She said the \u201cunprecedented gravity of the situation demands urgent intervention by the international community\u201d. Pakistan urged the United Nations to play a proactive role in facilitating a ceasefire to alleviate the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza. \u201cThe international community must work in concert for a just comprehensive and lasting two-state solution with a viable, sovereign and contiguous state of Palestine on the basis of pre-1967 borders, with Al Quds Sharif (Jerusalem) as its capital. Peace in the Middle East will remain elusive in the absence of such a solution,\u201d she said. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As heavy Israeli bombardments continued to hit the Palestinian enclave on Thursday, Pakistan strongly condemned the \u201cindiscriminate and disproportionate\u201d use of force by Israeli authorities…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10387,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}