JEDDAH, Monday, August 25, 2025 (WNP): Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar on Monday strongly condemned Israel’s “highly escalatory and dangerous” statements over Palestine, warning they represent a blatant attempt to entrench illegal occupation and undermine peace in the region.
Speaking at the 21st Extraordinary Session of the OIC Council of Foreign Ministers in Jeddah, Dar said the Israeli cabinet’s recent plan to impose full military control over Gaza, coupled with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s allusion to creating a “Greater Israel,” exposed a “rogue, annexationist mindset.”
“Gaza has become a graveyard for innocent lives as well as for international law,” Dar said, noting that more than 60,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — had been killed in Israel’s ongoing military assault. He accused Israel of deliberately targeting hospitals, schools, refugee camps, aid convoys and UN facilities in what he described as “wanton acts of collective punishment.”
Dar outlined Pakistan’s seven-point plan to address the crisis, including:
- an immediate, unconditional ceasefire;
- safe humanitarian access and protection of aid workers;
- renewed support for UNRWA;
- an end to forced displacement, settlement expansion and annexation;
- implementation of Arab-OIC reconstruction plans for Gaza;
- revival of a time-bound political process toward a two-state solution on pre-1967 borders with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as the Palestinian capital;
- and accountability for war crimes through international mechanisms.
He stressed that Israel’s recent declarations were not only a threat to Palestinians but also to Arab national security, regional stability and the global rules-based order. “Failure to uphold the rights of Palestinians will embolden impunity and undermine the legitimacy of the very order we claim to defend,” he warned.
Dar reaffirmed Pakistan’s “unequivocal solidarity” with Arab states in safeguarding their sovereignty and territorial integrity, welcoming international momentum toward Palestinian statehood and urging countries that have yet to recognize Palestine to do so without delay.
Calling on the OIC to rise “with unity, resolve and purpose,” he said history would judge the Muslim world not by its words but by its actions. “Another Nakba cannot, and must not, be allowed to happen,” he declared.
Pakistan, as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, would continue to work with Arab and Islamic partners to push for justice, accountability, and the realization of Palestinians’ right to self-determination, he added.
