ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has condemned Israel’s recent decisions to expand control over the occupied West Bank while addressing a high-level United Nations Security Council briefing on Palestine in New York, the foreign ministry said on Thursday.
Israel’s cabinet approved new measures this month tightening administrative and legal control over parts of the West Bank, including easing land purchases by settlers and reclassifying land as “state land,” a move Palestinians and many international observers say deepens settlement expansion and undermines prospects for a two-state solution.
Pakistan, which does not recognize Israel and has consistently supported Palestinian statehood, has also recently joined a multilateral diplomatic framework aimed at stabilizing Gaza following the latest war and ceasefire efforts.
In a statement, the foreign ministry said Dar “strongly condemned Israel’s continued ceasefire violations, illegal settlement activities, and attempts to alter the status of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly its recent illegal decisions and measures to expand control over the Occupied West Bank, including designating of its land as ‘state land’.”
