BRUSSELS (APP) – The ambassadors of the OIC member states, including Paksitan, in Brussels on Monday called upon the European Union to make all necessary efforts to bring about an immediate and complete ceasefire and put an end to the Israeli aggression in Gaza.
The ambassadors, in a joint press conference held here, emphasised the EU’s role to help end impunity and hold Israel accountable for its war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the barbaric aggression during its more than 16-year illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Pakistan’s Ambassador in Brussels Amna Baloch, in her remarks at the press conference, reiterated the call for immediate cessation of hostilities in Gaza and said that Pakistan firmly stood with the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination.
The presser was held in the face of Israel’s continuing illegal and barbaric aggression against the Palestinian people, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the Gaza Strip.
Reiterating the call made by the OIC Extraordinary Executive Committee Meeting of Foreign Ministers, held on October 18, 2023, for an immediate cessation of this illegal and inhumane Israeli aggression, the envoys also asked for providing international protection for the Palestinian people.
They stressed the need for the EU’s efforts for opening the humanitarian corridors to allow rapid, safe and uninterrupted delivery of all necessary supplies of food, water, fuel, medicine and other life-saving and vital necessities to reach the civilian population in Gaza without any further delay.
The ambassadors told the media that Israel’s relentless day and night bombing of the Palestinians resulted into the killing of about 10,000 Palestinians mostly women and children and l injured more than 26,000 citizens.
Mentioning the rapid increase of the figures on both counts, the OIC ambassadors rejected the targeting of innocent civilians under any pretext.
They reiterated the call issued at the end of the 10th Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly to end inhumane Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, and the call made by the OIC Group in its statement during the Special Session underscoring that a ceasefire was urgently needed.
The ambassadors of the OIC member states underlined the urgency to provide immediate, safe and sustained delivery of humanitarian aid, particularly food, water, fuel, electricity, medical needs and non-food emergency items to the Gaza Strip including through the UN institutions and particularly the United Nations Relief and Work’s Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
They reiterated their categorical rejection of any attempt to violently and forcibly displace the Palestinian population, the majority of whom are already refugees, from the Gaza Strip or to transfer the crisis created by the Israeli occupation to the neighbouring countries.
The OIC ambassadors condemned Israeli minister’s racist comments calling for nuclear bombing of Gaza Strip and viewed that the abhorrent speech as an extension of terrorist racist ideology which called for the international community’s condemnation and effective measures to stop the barbaric military aggression, daily massacre and genocide carried out by the Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian people.
The OIC countries’ envoys stressed the need to provide international protection for the Palestinian people, in conformity with international humanitarian laws as had been repeatedly advocated by the United Nations General Assembly, including in resolution ES-10/20 of 13 June 2018 and in line with the Final Communique of the 7th Extraordinary Islamic Summit, by dispatching an international protection force to protect innocent lives from ongoing attacks by the occupation forces and the extremist colonialist settlers.
They called on the European Union institutions including the Council, the Commission, the European External Action Service and the European Parliament besides the EU
Member States to urgently engage in concerted efforts to halt Israel’s barbaric military assaults on Palestinian civilians and put an end to the ethnic cleansing undertaken by Israel against the Palestinian people in its occupied territories.
The ambassadors reaffirmed their support to the Palestinian people to uphold their inalienable legitimate rights to self-determination, sovereignty and independence of the State of Palestine on the basis of the 1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif (East Jerusalem) as its capital, in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative.