Pakistan ‘can never have’ relations with Israel, PM’s special envoy says
20 November 2023
Published in: Arab News
ISLAMABAD: Tahir Mahmood Ashrafi, the PM’s special envoy to the Middle East, on Monday reiterated that Pakistan “can never have” relations with Israel as it continued its war on Gaza and heavy fighting erupted around a hospital in the north of the enclave where thousands of patients and displaced people have been sheltering for weeks.
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 13,000 people, including at least 5,500 children.
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.
“Pakistan has no relations with Israel and can never have any relations,” Ashrafi told reporters at a media briefing.
The PM’s special representative also addressed social media reports that Pakistan was supplying 155mm shells to Israel in its war on Gaza and a British Air Force plane had allegedly traveled from Bahrain to Pakistan’s Nur Khan base in Rawalpindi and then proceeded to a base in Cyprus via Oman.
“Selling ammunition to Israel is a distant prospect for Pakistan, a country that has not engaged in any form of trade, not even selling an empty bottle,” Ashrafi said.
“Pakistan has sent two consignments of relief goods to Palestine through Egypt and steps are being taken to double aid to the Palestinians on the instructions of the prime minister,” he added.
Pakistan has repeatedly called on the international community to hold Israel accountable for “deliberately” targeting mosques, churches and schools sheltering civilians who had been rendered homeless because of Israel’s destruction of their homes.
“Israel is deliberately making Gaza uninhabitable for its civilian population. Backers of Israel must stop Israel from implementing its plans,” the Pakistani foreign office said last week, calling Israel’s attacks “war crimes” and the “ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”