Deputy PM Dar calls for an embargo on military supplies to Israel

ISLAMABAD: Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar on Tuesday called upon for an embargo on all the military supplies and sales to Israel, besides proposing to consider the deployment of an impartial international force for the protection of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.

In a statement at the High-Level Conference on Urgent Humanitarian Response for Gaza in Amman, Jordan, the deputy prime minister urged that they must ensure the immediate withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from Gaza in accordance with resolution 2735.

At this critical juncture, he said they must undertake concrete steps to effectively redress the situation.

Spelling out the need of urgent steps, the deputy prime minister and foreign minister said that they must ensure the ceasefire called for by the UN Security Council was complete, durable and unconditional.

It must also halt the violence in the West Bank; he said, adding that it should step up the provision of humanitarian assistance to the beleaguered Palestinians in Gaza and meet their needs for food, medicines, energy and other essential supplies.

The deputy prime minister stressed to enlarge their support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and respond to the flash appeal issued by the UN in April.

“The demonization of UNRWA and the UN must be halted. All donors who have suspended support to UNRWA must reverse their decisions, and all others should enhance their assistance,” a press release quoted him as saying.

Deputy PM Dar said ​Pakistan proposed that a comprehensive plan for the reconstruction of Gaza should be prepared following the UN Resolution 2735 and they would be happy to partner in the reconstruction of the educational institutions in Gaza.

​In parallel, he said they must work to implement the two-state solution which had again been endorsed by the Security Council resolution.

“We strongly oppose any demographic or territorial change in Gaza. In this context, and as an important step, it is time to secure the immediate admission of the State of Palestine as a full member of the United Nations. This will ensure the irreversibility of the two-State solution, the only option for durable peace and security in the Holy Land,” he added.

Ishaq ​Dar further said that they were meeting in the shadows of the gravest crimes committed since the Second World War as Israel’s ongoing 8-month genocidal military aggression in Gaza has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, injured over 84,500 with a disproportionate number being women and children, and displacing the entire 2.3 million population of Gaza.

​Israel has acted with complete impunity and utter disregard for international law, the UN Charter and the collective will of the international community, he added.

“Starvation has been employed as a tool of warfare. Humanitarian supplies and life-saving assistance have been impeded. Civilian infrastructure, homes, schools, hospitals, aid convoys, and humanitarian shelters have been willfully targeted and destroyed,” he said.

​​Until now, the foreign minister said Israel had refused the calls by the UN General Assembly, by the Security Council, by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the OIC and even by its friends and patrons, to halt its massacre of innocents.

The brutal and indiscriminate suffering imposed by Israel on an entire population had been termed as a “plausible genocide” by the ICJ, he said, adding that the present Israeli leadership had refused the two-State solution.

Their objective appeared to be to expel the Palestinians again from their homeland and impose a Jewish-State “Final Solution”.

The deputy prime minister said Pakistan strongly and unequivocally condemned these Israeli atrocities.

“The government and the people of Pakistan stand in complete solidarity with their Palestinian brothers and sisters in these testing times,” he said, adding that they had dispatched over 8 planeloads carrying over 2000 tons of humanitarian assistance for their brethren trapped in Gaza since last October, and would continue to send these relief goods and assistance.

​​He said “Like many of our fellow Muslim countries, we draw hope from the adoption of the UN Security Council resolution 2735 last night, which welcomes the new ceasefire proposal announced on May 31 by the U.S. President Joe Biden.”

The deputy prime minister hoped that the UNSC’s resolution would lead to a permanent and sustainable ceasefire, bringing much needed peace to the Gaza Strip, besides it would facilitate the safe and effective distribution of humanitarian assistance throughout the Gaza Strip; and ensure the protection of all Palestinians.

​​“Pakistan also supports the calls for an international peace conference to work out a timetable and roadmap for implementing the two-State solution. Apart from members of the Security Council, this process should include the participation of key Arab and OIC countries,” he stressed.

​The deputy prime minister said that they were at a defining moment in history.

The Palestinians had endured historic injustice for almost a century, he observed and stressed that they must strive to end their sufferings; enable them to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination; and help them to live in freedom as a free, independent and sovereign people, with a State within the pre-1967 borders and a liberated Al-Quds Sharif as its capital.

​​As a non-permanent member of the UNSC for the term 2025/2026, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Dar reiterated that Pakistan would seek to advance peace, prosperity and development in the world, particularly resolution of the long standing conflicts, especially the Palestinian issue.