ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan Wednesday expressed his solidarity with Palestinian victims of Israeli violence.
“I am PM [prime minister] of Pakistan and #WeStandWithGaza #WeStandWithPalestine,” he tweeted, joining the millions of Twitterverse who sent out similar messages of support to the people of Palestine.
I am PM of Pakistan and #WeStandWithGaza #WeStandWithPalestine pic.twitter.com/0Gpb9DxjJG
— Imran Khan (@ImranKhanPTI) May 12, 2021
The prime minister also shared an excerpt of an article of American historian Noam Chomsky in which he mentions an old man in Gaza holding a placard that reads: “You take my water, burn my olive trees, destroy my house, take my job, steal my land, imprison my father, kill my mother, bombard my country, starve us all, humiliate us all but I am to blame: I shot a rocket back.”
The violence escalated after Israeli forces stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque — Islam’s third holiest site — attacking Palestinian worshippers using rubber-coated steel bullets, stun grenades and tear gas over the weekend.
At least 43 people have been killed in Gaza since violence escalated on Monday, according to the enclave’s health ministry. Six people have been killed in Israel, medical officials said.
Israel carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Gaza on Wednesday and Palestinian fighters fired multiple rocket barrages at Tel Aviv and the southern city of Beersheba in the region’s most intense hostilities in years.
The heaviest offensive between Israel and Hamas since a 2014 war in the Hamas-ruled enclave has increased international concern that the situation could spiral out of control.
Pakistan condemned Israel’s actions and called for Muslim nations to stand by the Palestinians.
The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) also condemned the airstrikes. It said that it “condemns in the strongest terms the repeated attacks by the Israeli occupation authorities against the Palestinian people.”
The body also condemned “the Israeli occupation forces’ continuation of their colonial programs — building settlements, attempting to confiscate Palestinian properties, forceful eviction of Palestinians from their land”.
The OIC also demanded that “relevant international actors”, including the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), should implement resolutions and recommendations and “activate the necessary mechanisms to stop these violations”.
