Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar’s impassioned address at the high-level international conference on Palestine, co-chaired by Saudi Arabia and France, laid bare a truth the world can no longer ignore: Gaza has become 'a graveyard of international law and humanitarian principles'. With brutal clarity, Dar reiterated what Pakistan and other voices of conscience have long demanded: an immediate, unconditional ceasefire, an end to the occupation, support for Gaza’s reconstruction and the recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state. Dar’s comments are a moral indictment of the global order that has allowed Israel’s war on Gaza to continue with impunity. As he rightly pointed out, the Palestinian question is a litmus test for the international community – and the world has failed catastrophically.
What we are witnessing is not a 'conflict' between two equal sides. It is a sustained campaign of annihilation. Nearly two years have passed since Israel, under the far-right Netanyahu regime, unleashed an unprecedented wave of violence on Gaza. Since then, we have seen everything – from schools to hospitals, from refugee camps to aid convoys – bombed without consequence. Civilians, doctors, aid workers and journalists have been deliberately targeted. These facts are all documented, live-streamed and etched in the grief of an entire people. And yet, for the better part of this genocide, the international community remained largely silent. Western media became complicit through both omission and distortion. The same global actors that speak so fervently about human rights and media freedom failed to so much as condemn the murder of Palestinian journalists and their families. No outrage when Israel bombed churches and mosques. No red lines when children were starved and civilians were shot for trying to collect food.
Only now, as the full horror of starvation begins to reach Western screens – the skeletal bodies of children, the hollow eyes of mothers, the despair of doctors without medicine – are some countries beginning to change their tune. France has recognised the Palestinian state. Canada and others are cautiously shifting rhetoric. But these gestures, however welcome, are too little, too late. Meanwhile, Israel’s unwavering patron, the US, continues to shield Netanyahu’s regime with arms, funds and vetoes. No amount of diplomatic jargon can cover the blood on its hands. Washington’s complicity is active, deliberate and devastating. Pakistan’s position has remained consistent: this genocide must end. Israel’s occupation must end. There must be a permanent ceasefire, full humanitarian access and justice for war crimes. And above all, there must be a reinvigorated political process leading to the two-state solution, with Palestine recognised as a full UN member – not as a favour, but as a right. The people of Gaza have endured seven decades of displacement, dispossession and destruction. The last two years have been a particularly cruel chapter, but the world can still try and write a different ending. Palestine’s right to exist is non-negotiable. It's people’s right to dignity, security and statehood must be upheld. No more stalling, no more selective outrage.
