ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday described the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as an extreme case of politically driven starvation, citing media and aid reports that people were not dying from a lack of food but because access to it was deliberately blocked.
In recent weeks, Gaza has faced a worsening humanitarian emergency. Israel’s blockade, imposed since early March, has severely restricted access to food, water and medical supplies. Aid agencies and the United Nations have warned of mass starvation and rising child malnutrition in the enclave, home to around two million people. Only a few humanitarian trucks have been allowed in.
“At least 175 Palestinians, including 93 children, have died of starvation,” Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad told a UN Security Council briefing. “The Director-General of the FAO has warned ‘Gaza is now on the brink of a full-scale famine. People are not starving because food is unavailable, they are starving because access is denied.’”
He noted that even the delivery of humanitarian aid had become deadly for Palestinians.
“Over 1,200 aid-related killings have been documented since May,” he added. “Palestinians are routinely forced to choose between two deadly options: risking death by starvation, or risking death by gunfire to reach food aid sites.’ That is what The New York Times is saying.”
Citing Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper, Ahmad said Gaza represented “the most extreme example of politically driven starvation in the 21st century,” echoing earlier warnings from UNICEF, the UN Secretary-General, and the World Food Programme that described the situation as a “perfect storm of suffering” and a “disaster unfolding before our eyes.”
The Pakistani envoy called for an “immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire,” alongside full Israeli withdrawal, the release of hostages from the Hamas captivity and unrestricted humanitarian access to the Palestinian enclave.
“This war on civilians must end,” he said.
“Human rights are universal and indivisible,” he added. “Human rights cannot be partitioned, and justice must never be selective. The imperative, legal, political and moral, is crystal clear: we must act now to end Israel’s brutal and illegal war and the unconscionable suffering of the Palestinian people. Humanity and dignity of people, civilians on both sides, demand nothing less.”
Ahmad also warned that lasting peace would remain elusive without addressing the root cause of the crisis, which he identified as Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestinian territories, and called for the implementation of a two-state solution based on pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.
