Calling Gaza a “graveyard for humanity and the global conscience,” Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar urged the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the broader international community to act decisively, uphold human dignity, and ensure accountability and justice for the Palestinian people.
DPM Dar, who also holds the foreign minister portfolio, is accompanying Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the high-level meeting of the 80th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) session, which opened in New York on Tuesday.
“Gaza has become a graveyard for humanity as well as for the global conscience… Hospitals, schools and markets lie in ruins. Roads and fatalities have been shattered. The very fabric of society has been torn apart while over 64,000 lives have been lost and over 100,000 have been injured,” said Dar in his national statement at the UNSC meeting on the Middle East situation.
He further said: “These are not mere statistics. They were grieving mothers, vanquished fathers, suffering children and revered elders.”
“The time for words has passed. The time for action is now,” Dar added.
FM Dar further said that the humanitarian situation in Gaza has reached catastrophic proportions, as famine was now a reality in Gaza City, putting over half a million people at grave risk.
“Dozens of Palestinians were killed each day and 300,000 people had been uprooted and nearly one million faced imminent displacement,” he told the UNSC.
“The roar of fighter jets, the plumes of smoke from tank fire and the collapse of buildings. What must this relentless violence mean for women, children and the most vulnerable? And what of the hostages caught in the crossfire whose lives hang in the balance?”
“The time for action is upon us,” he said and called for urgent and concrete measures, including immediate unconditional and permanent ceasefire, full unhindered humanitarian access to Gaza and the immediate lifting of the blockade to allow life-saving aid, and a categorical end to any forced displacement of Palestinians from the lands.
FM Dar further reaffirmed Pakistan’s unwavering support for the Palestinian people in their just struggle for dignity, justice and self-determination through the establishment of a sovereign, independent and contiguous Palestinian state on pre-1967 borders with Al-Quds al Sharif as its capital.
He welcomed the two-state solution conference shared by France and Saudi Arabia and also appreciated the recent recognitions of the state of Palestine by numerous member states.
‘World witnessing a plausible genocide’
Meanwhile, addressing the session of the OIC Committee of Six on Palestine on Tuesday, DPM Dar said that Pakistan will advance peace in the Middle East as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council 2025-2026.
The minister stressed that settler violence and military raids in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are intensifying “under an extremist Israeli leadership determined to bury the two-state solution”.
“This is a defining moment for the Middle East and the Muslim world,” he said.
“The momentum generated by the High-Level International Conference on Implementation of the Two-State Solution must be sustained.”
The minister also suggested the OIC press for:
- An immediate, unconditional and permanent cease-fire.
- Safe, open aid corridors and full backing for UNRWA, the UN agency that keeps millions of Palestinians alive.
- A halt to forced displacement and new Israeli settlements.
- Return of land and property seized since 1967.
- The right of Palestinian refugees to go home.
- Trials for war crimes and payment for damage done.
- Respect for every ICJ ruling.
- A Gaza rebuilding scheme led by Arab and Islamic states.
- A proper international protection force for Palestinians.
- A fully independent State of Palestine on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem (Al-Quds Al-Sharif) as its capital, and a seat at the United Nations.
— With additional input from APP
