ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has reaffirmed its commitment to humanitarian help and reconstruction efforts in the Gaza Strip during a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) pledging conference in New York.
The development comes as the UN Secretary General appealed for funding for the beleaguered UN agency helping Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip and elsewhere in the Middle East, alleging Israel of issuing evacuation orders that force Gazans “to move like human pinballs across a landscape of devastation and death.”
UNRWA’s 30,000 staff provide primary health care, education, and other development activities to around 6 million Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.
Pakistan has also dispatched over eight planeloads carrying over 2,000 tons of humanitarian help to Gaza since the outbreak of Israel’s war on Gaza in October last year, officials said.
In New York, Second Secretary of the Pakistan Mission to the United Nations Rabia Ijaz has advocated for a comprehensive reconstruction plan for the Gaza Strip and reiterated readiness to assist the reconstruction of educational institutions the war-hit Gaza.
The envoy also called for an urgent execution of a peace plan for Gaza as outlined in the UNSC resolutions. Islamabad calls for an independent Palestinian state based on “internationally agreed parameters” and the pre-1967 borders with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital city.
Since the beginning of Israel’s brutal attacks, Islamabad has repeatedly raised the issue at the United Nations and other world forums, demanding global powers and multilateral bodies prevent Israeli military attacks in Gaza.
Since October 7, Israeli ground offensives and brutal bombardments have killed over 38,300 people, mostly children and women, in Gaza, health officials said.
