ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday condemned Israel for “deliberately” targeting the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL), saying it was vital for peacekeepers to be able to fulfill their mission without fear of attack or obstruction.
The UN mission has been stationed in southern Lebanon to monitor hostilities in the area that has witnessed intense clashes this month between Israeli forces and Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters.
Since launching its ground incursion in Lebanon in early October, Israel has fired on several front-line UNIFIL positions, even as its stated objective is only to dismantle Hezbollah’s infrastructure in the Arab state.
Two UN peacekeepers were wounded by an Israeli strike near a UNIFIL watchtower earlier this month, leading to criticism from about 50 countries contributing troops to the 10,000-strong force.
“Pakistan strongly condemns the deliberate and unlawful attacks by Israeli forces on the United Nations interim force in Lebanon,” foreign office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in her weekly media briefing in Islamabad.
“The peacekeepers must be able to fulfill their mission without fear of attack or obstruction,” she continued, adding that despite such attacks, UNIFIL had managed to remain operational.
The spokesperson said Pakistan wanted the international community to ask Israel to end its aggressive actions against UNIFIL while also seeking a ceasefire against the people of Palestine and Lebanon.
“Israel should also be held accountable for its war crimes and crimes against humanity and the people of Palestine should be protected from Israeli aggression,” she added.
Baloch said Pakistan also condemned the “brutal and indiscriminate Israeli airstrikes on Beit Lahiya,” a town in northern Gaza which resulted in the tragic loss of over 80 Palestinian lives on Sunday.
“Targeting densely populated residential areas without warning and collective punishment of civilians and depriving them of food, water, and essential medicines constitute war crimes,” she added.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Wednesday that an UNRWA employee was killed in a strike on a vehicle in Gaza.
At least 223 UNRWA staff members have been killed, and two-thirds of the agency’s facilities in Gaza damaged or destroyed since the war began early last year, its head, Philippe Lazzarini, said last month.
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