New York, 27 Sept 2024 (APP)

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif today on Friday warned the world community that the illegal occupation of Palestine and Kashmir was creating a ‘fresh hell’ every day and stressed the efforts for dispute resolution besides addressing the global challenges of terrorism, climate change and Islamophobia.

He said that illegal occupation creates a fresh hell, every day, in the killing fields of Palestine, and in occupied Jammu and Kashmir… Can we turn a blind eye to the mothers, cradling the lifeless bodies of their children ? This is not just a conflict; this is systematic slaughter of innocent people; an assault on the very essence of human life and dignity. The blood of Gaza’s children stains the hands of not just the oppressors, but also of those who are complicit in prolonging this cruel conflict,” he told the annual 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) here.

The prime minister, in his 21-minute address at the 193-member Assembly, touched on multiple regional and international issues including Palestine and Kashmir disputes, Ukraine war, climate change, rising poverty and debt burden particularly induced by climate change impacts.

Prime Minister Shehbaz called upon the international community’s action to demand an immediate end to the bloodshed, as work for a durable peace through a viable, secure, contiguous and sovereign State of Palestine, based on the pre-1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its eternal Capital.

Before the gathering of the global leaders, Prime Minister Shehbaz also highlighted the sufferings of the people of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, and said that India had resiled from commitments to implement the UN Security Council resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir which mandated a plebiscite to enable the Kashmiri people to exercise their fundamental right to self-determination.

Since 5 August 2019, India has initiated unilateral illegal steps to impose what its leaders ominously call, a ‘Final Solution’ for Jammu and Kashmir. Nine hundred thousand Indian troops terrorize the people of occupied Jammu and Kashmir, with draconian measures, including prolonged curfews, extra-judicial killings and the abduction of thousands of young Kashmiris’.

He highlighted the Indian nefarious designs of seizing Kashmiri lands and properties, and settling outsiders into occupied Jammu and Kashmir, to transform the Muslim-majority into a minority.

The Pakistan delegation to the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly, led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, walked out on Friday as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stage to address the 193-member Assembly.

Among others who boycotted Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu address also included Arab Countries, Brazil, Iran, Turkey, Botswana,  Columbia, Chile, Djibouti, Guinea-Bissau among many others. It served as a strong gesture of protest to the presence of  Netanyahu, whom the UN organs and human rights bodies have accused of being responsible for carrying out a massacre of the Palestinian people in its deadly war in Gaza.

Meanwhile, criticism has arisen over allowing the UN address by Netanyahu, for whom International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan is seeking an arrest warrant for ‘war crimes’.

Official News Agency of Rurkiye, Anadolu reported that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut short his trip to New York on Friday evening following an unprecedented airstrike by his country’s army on Lebanon’s capital.

A statement by his office indicated that Netanyahu took off from New York at 1 p.m. EDT. Netanyahu’s office released a photo for him inside his office at the UN headquarters in New York while using a landline telephone to approve the strike on Beirut.