ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday called on the United Nations to complete what it described as the “unfinished agenda of decolonization,” citing the situations in Palestine and Indian-administered Kashmir as the world’s most pressing examples of people denied their right to self-determination.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly’s Fourth Committee on Decolonization, Pakistan’s Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad said that while more than 80 former colonies had gained independence under UN auspices, “the story of decolonization remains incomplete.”
The remarks came as the war in Gaza completed its second year, with widespread destruction and civilian casualties following Israel’s continued bombardment and blockade of the enclave since October 2023.
Palestinian health authorities say Israel's two-year-old ground and air campaign against Hamas in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 67,000 people, with nearly a third of the dead under the age of 18. Rights groups and UN agencies say restrictions on aid and repeated Israeli strikes on residential areas, schools, and hospitals have deepened one of the worst humanitarian crises in decades.
“The imperative of decolonization is not merely a matter of history; it remains an urgent demand of justice for peoples still living under alien domination and foreign occupation,” Ahmad said. “Peoples in different regions continue to remain deprived of their right to self-determination, foremost among them the people of Palestine and the people of Jammu and Kashmir.”
The Pakistani envoy described the situation in Gaza as a “tragedy” that has “cast a long shadow over the credibility of the international order and the United Nations.”
“Generations of Palestinians have endured occupation, dispossession, blockades, and repeated cycles of violence, the latest being the tragedy in Gaza that has unfolded before us over the last two years,” he said.
Ahmad said Israel’s military campaign in Gaza had killed thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children, and devastated civilian infrastructure, including homes, schools and hospitals, in what he described as a blatant disregard for international law.
He reiterated Pakistan’s position that lasting peace in the Middle East hinges on the creation of an independent and contiguous Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital, ensuring the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.
He added that continued occupation was “the root cause of instability in the region” and called for urgent action by the international community to ensure a ceasefire in Gaza and unimpeded humanitarian access.
The latest detailed breakdown released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health on October 7 showed 67,173 killed, including 20,179 children, accounting for 30% of the total.
The official ministry death toll dwarfs those killed in all previous bouts of fighting between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza since 2005, according to data from Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem.
In the first months of the war, death tolls were calculated simply by counting bodies that arrived in hospitals, and data included names and identity numbers for most of those killed.
In May 2024, the health ministry included unidentified bodies, which accounted for nearly a third of the overall toll. However, since October 2024, it has only encompassed identified bodies.
A Reuters examination in March of an earlier Gaza Health Ministry list of those killed showed that more than 1,200 families were completely wiped out, including one family of 14 people.
With inputs from Reuters
