ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday welcomed the adoption of a resolution by the United Nations Security Council demanding an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and urged the international community to ensure its earliest implementation.
As famine looms in Gaza and amid growing global pressure for a truce in the war that Palestinian health authorities say has killed some 32,000 people, the US abstained on Monday to allow the Security Council to demand an immediate ceasefire for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which ends in two weeks.
The remaining 14 council members voted for the resolution, which was proposed by the 10 elected members of the body. The resolution also demands the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.
“The barbarism by the Israeli forces against the unarmed Palestinian people should be stopped permanently,” Sharif said in a statement published on the state-run APP news agency.
“Pakistan would continue to support their Palestinian brethren till the achievement of a Palestinian state with pre-1967 borders.”
The Pakistani foreign office, in a separate statement, also welcomed the UNSC’s call for allowing the free flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza, lifting all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance and ensuring protection of civilians in the entire enclave.
“Over the course of past six months, Pakistan has repeatedly expressed its strong and unequivocal condemnation of the indiscriminate use of force by Israel, calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, unimpeded humanitarian assistance to the besieged people of Gaza, return of the displaced Palestinians, and ensuring accountability for the crimes being committed by Israel with impunity,” the foreign office said.
“We call for expeditious implementation of the Security Council resolution adopted today, hoping that it will serve as a first step toward ending Israel’s brutal onslaught, ensuring a permanent ceasefire, and helping address the prevailing grave humanitarian situation in Gaza.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged Israel on Monday to lift all obstacles to aid into Gaza and allow convoys of the UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA into the north of the coastal enclave.
Famine is imminent and likely to occur by May in northern Gaza and could spread across the enclave by July, according to a UN-backed report by a global authority on food security released last week.