ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday called for the immediate cessation of Gaza ceasefire violations by Israel after the latter’s strike on the Palestinian enclave killed more than 100 people.
Gaza’s health ministry said at least 104 people were killed after Israel carried out air strikes on the Palestinian territory yesterday, accusing Hamas of violating the truce by killing a soldier, which the group denied.
The renewed Israeli bombardment prompted strong condemnation from Pakistan, one of the eight Muslim countries that worked with the United States on President Donald Trump’s peace plan.
“Pakistan strongly condemns the renewed attacks by the Israeli occupying forces in Gaza, which have reportedly resulted in civilian casualties,” the Foreign Office said in a statement.
“These actions constitute a clear and flagrant violation of international law, as well as a breach of the recently concluded peace agreement,” the FO said, warning that such “aggressive measures by the Israeli occupation forces threaten to undermine the international efforts aimed at establishing durable peace and stability in the region”.
“Pakistan calls upon the international community to ensure an immediate cessation of ceasefire violations by the Israeli occupation forces,” it added.
The statement reiterated Pakistan’s principled position for the establishment of an independent State of Palestine based on the pre-June 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital.
“At least 101 fatalities were brought to hospitals, including 35 children and a number of women and elderly, as a result of Israeli air strikes in less than 12 hours,” said Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza’s civil defence agency.
“The Israeli strikes targeted tents for displaced people, homes and the vicinity of a hospital in the Strip,” Bassal told AFP. The agency’s toll was confirmed by an AFP tally of reports from medical officials at five Gaza hospitals that received the dead and wounded.
The territory’s main Al-Shifa hospital said one of the strikes hit its backyard.
Al-Awda Hospital said it had received several bodies, including those of four children, killed in the bombing of Gaza’s central Nuseirat refugee camp.
“We had just started to breathe again, trying to rebuild our lives, when the bombardment came back,” said Khadija al-Husni, who lives in a tent at a school in the Al-Shati refugee camp.
“It’s a crime. Either there is a truce or a war — it can’t be both. The children couldn’t sleep; they thought the war was over.”
Gaza civil defence agency’s Bassal called the strikes “a clear and flagrant violation of the ceasefire agreement”.
However, Trump insisted that “nothing“ would jeopardise the truce he helped broker.
During a trip to Asia, the US president defended the actions of its longtime ally Israel, saying, “They killed an Israeli soldier. So the Israelis hit back. And they should hit back.”
The Israeli military said today it had reinstated the Gaza ceasefire, claiming that “dozens of terror targets and terrorists were struck”.
It said its military forces and the Israel Security Agency, also known as Shin Bet, “struck 30 terrorists holding command positions” within fighter groups operating in Gaza.
