ISLAMABAD: Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN), on Sunday demanded the Security Council stop Israel’s planned occupation of Gaza city, saying the move “aims to erase Palestinian presence.”
After a security cabinet meeting on Friday, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed a plan to take over Gaza had been approved, with Israeli forces preparing to take control of Gaza while providing humanitarian aid to civilian population outside combat zones.
The move has drawn a sharp reaction from several countries around the world, including Pakistan, while UN human rights chief Volker Turk this week called on Israel to immediately halt its plan of occupying Gaza city.
Speaking at a UNSC meeting on the Middle East, Ahmad said the latest Israeli move would extinguish prospects for peace and was the culmination of a campaign of “ethnic cleansing.”
“Gaza is enduring a full-scale humanitarian catastrophe. For nearly two years, it has suffered indiscriminate bombardment, total blockade, and deliberate deprivation and starvation, while violence and dispossession escalate in the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” he said.
