Pakistan says Israel ‘deliberately’ making Gaza ‘uninhabitable’ for civilian population
ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani foreign office said on Thursday Israel’s continuing aerial bombardment and armoured ground offensive on Gaza, including its targeting of hospitals, was a deliberate attempt to make the enclave “uninhabitable” for its civilian population.
Israel has launched a war on Gaza since Oct. 7 after Hamas fighters rampaged through southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking some 240 hostages. Israel retaliated by enforcing a strict blockade of the enclave, and carrying out airstrikes and ground attacks that Palestinian officials say have killed around 11,500 people, of which 40% are children, with many more dead and buried under the rubble.
Entire generations of Palestinian families in the besieged Gaza Strip have been killed, from great-grandparents to infants only weeks old. Attacks are occurring at a scale never seen in years of conflict, with Israel hitting schools, hospitals, residential areas, mosques and churches, even striking areas in southern Gaza where Israeli forces ordered civilians to flee.
The foreign office called on Israel to be held accountable for “deliberately” targeting mosques, churches and schools sheltering civilians who had been rendered homeless because of Israel’s destruction of their homes.
“By decimating civilian infrastructure and symbols of self-governance, including the Legislative Council, Israel is deliberately making Gaza uninhabitable for its civilian population. Backers of Israel must stop Israel from implementing its plans,” the foreign office said, calling Israel’s attacks “war crimes” and the “ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”
Gaza’s biggest hospital, Al Shifa, has become the chief target of the ground incursion by Israeli forces, who say Hamas operations are headquartered in tunnels beneath it. Hamas hasdenied the accusation as “lies and cheap propaganda.”
International attention has focused on the fate of hundreds of patients trapped inside Al Shifa without electricity to operate basic medical equipment, and tend to thousands of displaced civilians who had sought shelter there. Gaza officials say that many patients including newborn babies died in recent days as Israel encircled the hospital.
“Pakistan also condemns Israel’s wars on hospitals in Gaza, as hospital after hospital is being targeted by the occupation forces in complete disregard of international law,” the foreign office spokesperson said.
“We are appalled by Israeli incursion in Al-Shifa Hospital, placing patients, medical staff, and civilians at risk. We join the international community to hold Israeli occupation accountable for its attacks against hospitals.”
Israel has ordered the evacuation of the entire northern half of Gaza, and around two-thirds of its 2.3 million residents are now homeless. On Thursday, Israeli forces dropped leaflets warning Palestinians to flee parts of southern Gaza, signaling a possible expansion of operations to areas where hundreds of thousands of people who heeded earlier evacuation orders are crowded into UN-run shelters and family homes.
Broadening the offensive to the south, where food, water and electricity are increasingly scarce and on which Israel already carries out daily air raids, threatens to worsen an already severe humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory.