New York: Pakistan, speaking on behalf of the Islamic countries, has called for convening an International Peace Conference on Palestine, aimed at implementing UN resolutions on the restoration of Palestinians’ inalienable rights to self-determination within a two-state solution.
“The international community should uphold its responsibility in halting the Israeli aggression on Gaza immediately,” Ambassador Munir Akram told the UN General Assembly session which followed the U.S. veto on the Feb 20 Security Council resolution calling for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip.
While deeply regretting the veto, the Pakistani envoy voiced dismay over the global community’s inability to end Israeli aggression against Gaza in which 29,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed.
Ambassador Akram addressed the 193-member Assembly in his capacity as acting chairmen of OIC group at the United Nations.
“ Since the lunch of the aggression on Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine nearly over the past five months, the entire world has continued to follow, with growing despair, and anger, the monumental and unending sufferings imposed on the Palestinian people in Gaza,” Ambassador Akram said.
“This situation has resulted in the colossal loss of lives and wanton destruction of homes, schools, hospitals and religious sites in Gaza, due to the incessant attacks by the Israeli occupying power on the territory.
“ At the same time, Ambassador Akram warned against the looming risk of widespread starvation in Gaza due to insufficient food supplies and essential services, as he reiterated the call for a ceasefire to allow humanitarian supplies into Gaza.
“Notwithstanding the foregoing efforts by the various actors within the United Nations as well as members of the international community, there are ominous signs of even greater dangers ahead,” he noted, referring to In UNRWA’s report on the impact of Israel’s recent calls to dismantle the agency and for donors to freeze their funding to it.
In this regard, he said there was an imminent threat of mass starvation in the Gaza Strip, due to inadequate food supplies and essential services for the teeming number of Palestinian in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Ambassador Akram urged the Assembly’s current session no to give expression to the dominant views of its member states, and the world public opinion at large, on the need for a decisive action to halt the bloodshed and carnage to which Gaza is being subjected.
“The world should support the Palestinian people to achieve their right to self-determination and establish their sovereign and independent state on their territory, occupied since 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, in line with relevant UN Resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative,” he said.
