ISLAMABAD: Pakistan criticized Israel on Thursday for launching attacks in Lebanon and Iran, saying its actions could lead to a major escalation of hostilities in the Middle East and scuttle the prospects of sustainable peace in the region.
Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh, the top Hamas political leader, while he was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
While Israel did not directly claimed responsibility for the attack, its involvement was widely acknowledged across the world, with Iran vowing revenge against it for targeting its state guest.
Haniyeh’s killing came within a day of another attack in Beirut, Lebanon, where Israel targeted a top Hezbollah commander in what it described as an “intelligence-based elimination.”
“Israel’s latest actions in the region represent a dangerous expansion of hostilities that undermines efforts to achieve a just and lasting peace in the Middle East,” the foreign office spokesperson, Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, said during her weekly media briefing.
“Israel’s extraterritorial acts have endangered regional security,” she continued. “The backers of Israel should prevail on Israel to end its unlawful military operations in violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries in the region.”
Baloch described Israel’s attack in Beirut as a “grievous infringement on Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
“This attack on civilian areas is a blatant violation of international law and the United Nations Charter,” she added.
The foreign office spokesperson said targeting individuals inside sovereign states was a violation of international law and global norms, adding such acts carried the seeds of further escalation.
She said it was “yet another demonstration of indiscriminate and disproportionate Israeli aggression,” calling it detrimental to the regional and global peace and security.
“Yesterday’s assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the Chief of the Political Bureau of Hamas in Tehran, was an act of dangerous escalation in an already volatile region and undermines efforts for peace,” she maintained. “We express our condolences to his family and the Palestinian people. His killers must be held to account.”
Baloch said Israel had unleashed a “campaign of terror” against the Palestinian people since October 2023.
“Its war on Gaza and the inhumane siege in violation of international human rights and humanitarian law have resulted in misery, death and destruction,” she added. “These acts constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity. We call upon the United Nations to uphold international law and to bring an end to the genocide of the people of Gaza.”
She reiterated Pakistan’s support for Palestinian right to self-determination, their right of return to their homeland and the establishment of an independent state for them “with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.”