Pakistan urges UNSC action on Gaza
Pakistani Ambassador to the United Nations Asim Iftikhar Ahmad speaks during a United Nations Security Council meeting on the Israel-Iran conflict at the UN headquarters in New York on June 20, 2025. Photo: AFP
Pakistan has earnestly urged "those who shield Israel" and prevent the UN Security Council from taking action to restore peace and security in Gaza to seriously re-examine their policies that have resulted in "mass carnage" of the Palestinians in the devastated enclave.
"The occupying power's apologists must introspect, and objectively assess the consequences of their policies", Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, told the 15-member Council on Wednesday.
"What else is complicity," the Pakistani envoy asked. "In fact, impunity has become Israel's shield — and this Council's silence, its enabler." The Security Council, he added, cannot remain a bystander.
"It must act now, with resolve, to fulfill its Charter responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security."
"In this regard, Ambassador Iftikhar Ahmad, who was speaking in a debate on the situation in the Middle East, recalled that the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) recently adopted a resolution urging the Council, with "moral clarity", to act under Chapter VII (enforcement) to halt the aggression and violations by the Israeli occupation forces.
Highlighting the deliberate destruction of civilian life in Gaza, he pointed out that overwhelming majority of the more than 62,000 people killed, mostly women and children, were civilians.
"How can this ever be justified or defended? This cannot be collateral damage. It is mass carnage."
"The indiscriminate military onslaught continues, because Israel is confronted with no real consequences for its actions," the Pakistani envoy told delegates.