On Tuesday, at the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Syed Asim Munir met with Palestinian Ambassador to Pakistan Ahmad Jawad Rabei to express condolences for the loss of Palestinian lives in Gaza.
According to a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), he voiced great concern over the continuous violence and the purposeful, indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in the ongoing war.
At least 5,087 Palestinians, including 2,055 children, have been killed in two weeks of strikes, the Palestinian health ministry announced earlier today.
On Monday, while Israeli soldiers battled Hamas rebels during assaults into the embattled Palestinian strip, where civilians are imprisoned in horrifying conditions, the Israeli air force bombed hundreds of targets in Gaza from the air.
“Incessant attacks on the civilian population, schools, universities, aid workers, hospitals and the forced exodus of Palestinians from Gaza are the manifestation of crimes against humanity,” said the media branch of the military.
A ceasefire and humanitarian corridor in Gaza have both been called for by the COAS, and this has been called for again.
In light of the current crisis, he emphasised not only compliance with International Humanitarian Law but also the protection of civilians.
The COAS also restated Pakistan’s principled backing for a Palestinian state that is independent, sustainable, and contiguous, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital and based on pre-1967 borders.
“Pakistan believes that the recent outbreak of violence in Gaza is the result of unabated repression, continued human rights violations, and state-sponsored sacrilege of Al Aqsa mosque,” added COAS Munir.
“Conflating this war with terrorism would be naive; taking a narrow and self-serving view of the issue as an isolated attack, obscures brutal oppression spanning decades that has led to this outcome,” he continued.
“At this critical juncture, it is imperative that the international community mobilises to put an early end to the unfolding human tragedy due to disproportionate and unlawful use of force by IDF,” the army’s media wing reported him as saying.
