Syed Mussarat Khalil

Saudi Gazette

 

JEDDAH — Sartaj Aziz, the adviser to Pakistani prime minister on foreign affairs and national security, announced here Tuesday that Pakistan will provide $1 million for food and medicines to the victims of Israeli onslaught on Gaza and called upon the international community to donate generously for the cause.



Aziz announced the aid during his address at the extraordinary meeting of OIC Executive Committee on Occupied Palestinian Territory here at the OIC headquarters.



Aziz said that Pakistan strongly condemns Israel’s aggression against Palestinians. He stated that during the one-month Israeli aggression, the powerlessness of the UN Security Council and the inaction of the United Nations as a whole to prevent the bloodshed of Palestinians is regrettable.



He said: “Israel’s assault on unarmed Palestinian children and women was deliberate. And so assured was Israel of the lack of any consequence, that it pursued its massacre unflinchingly. Israel’s disdain for international human rights and humanitarian law should be a matter of grave concern for the international community.



Throughout the history of Palestinian conflict in the Middle East, we have witnessed numerous ceasefires and their subsequent breakdowns. Each time the ceasefire presented an opportunity to build peace, the international community failed to capitalize.”



Aziz said it was time that the international community realizes that there can be no enduring peace in the region sans a two-state solution.



“An independent, viable and geographically contiguous Palestinian State, on the basis of the pre-1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital, living side by side with Israel, is the only way to guarantee peace and stability in the region,” he added.



Stating that the present efforts for ceasefire in Gaza are fragile, Aziz said, these can, however, provide a window of opportunity to act. Pakistan, therefore, calls on the international community to:



• Consolidate an enduring ceasefire;

• Make efforts toward ending the blockade of Gaza thus providing much needed reprieve to the Palestinians;

• Affect release of more than 1000 Palestinian, imprisoned by Israel since June 2014;

• Assist UNRWA in its humanitarian efforts to help the Palestinians.

• Revive the peace process, as absence of peace talks imperils the fragile nature of the ceasefire; and

• Call for renewed efforts by the Quartet for engagement, conflict resolution and lasting peace.