At OIC meeting, Pakistan calls for setting up humanitarian corridors for Gaza

ISLAMABAD: At urgent meeting of Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC), Pakistan on Wednesday asserted that Israel must bring an immediate end to its campaign of terror with an immediate ceasefire, calling for establishing humanitarian corridors for relief supplies to Gaza, ARY News reported.

Caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani made these remarks, who is leading the Pakistan delegation to the urgent open-ended Ministerial Meeting of the Executive Committee of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) being held in Jeddah.

The meeting was co-convened by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to discuss the crisis in Gaza and the humanitarian situation of the besieged civilians there.

Speaking on the occasion, Jalil Abbas Jilani denounced the Israeli aggression and inhumane blockade of Gaza that resulted in death, destruction and displacement. He also condemned Tuesday’s massacre of innocent civilians in the vicious Israeli attack on a hospital in Gaza.

He underscored that the Israeli occupation forces were in clear violation of international humanitarian and human rights law. Their indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity, he added.

The foreign minister called on the international community to hold Israel accountable for its crimes.

Jilani emphasised that Israel must bring an immediate end to its campaign of terror with an immediate ceasefire, and rescinding forced evacuation of Palestinians from their homes.

He also underlined the urgency of humanitarian corridors for rapid, secure and unrestricted humanitarian and relief supplies to Gaza. He underlined that the root cause of the recent conflagration lay in the non-implementation of the two-state solution.

The minister reaffirmed Pakistan’s solidarity and support for the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination.

He called for an early establishment of a viable, secure, contiguous and sovereign state of Palestine on the basis of the pre-June 1967 borders and with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.

At the conclusion of the meeting, the Executive Committee adopted a Joint Communiqué outlining the collective stance of the Muslim Ummah on the situation in Gaza.

On the sidelines, the foreign minister also held meetings with the Foreign Ministers of Gambia, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye.

Israel’s strike on Gaza hospital

For tens of thousands of families in Gaza, hospitals became a refuge from seemingly endless Israeli shelling. Then came the strike Tuesday night on Ahli Arab Hospital in central Gaza, which the health ministry said killed at least 500 people.

Residents who have been told to flee the north of the Palestinian territory had packed the courtyards and corridors of the territory’s overwhelmed hospitals in the belief they were a safe haven from the Israeli bombardments.

The Hamas government in Gaza termed the attack a “war crime”. Meanwhile, the health ministry said that “the hospital was housing hundreds of sick and wounded, and people forcibly displaced from their homes” because of other Israeli attacks.

About 3,500 people have been killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip since the war erupted on October 7. More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed.