July 26, 2002	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 15,1423

UNITED NATIONS, July 25: Israel was lambasted in the UN Security Council late on Wednesday for its deadly strike on Gaza City, with nation after nation saying the attack was unreasonable, unacceptable and unwarranted.

Saudi Arabia, the current chairman of the Arab group at the United Nations, called for the emergency council meeting, with more than 35 speakers, to condemn the Tuesday raid that killed a wanted Hamas leader and 14 others, including nine children.

Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations, Munir Akram condemning the Israeli attack said that by any yardstick “Israeli attack was an act of terrorism, not the least because it was planned and perpetrated, not by a fanatical group, but by a so-called democratic government.

“Violence breeds violence. State-terrorism inevitably breeds terrorism.”

Welcoming the statement by the US president Bush denouncing Israeli action, Akram said the Security Council must take strong action against such acts of unbridled violence. No state should be allowed to entertain the expectation that it enjoys immunity, that it can perpetrate violations of international humanitarian law with impunity merely because it justifies these as being aimed against so-called terrorists.

“We must counter the widespread perception of double standards and multiple morality. Over the past several months, the fruits of decades of peace endeavours have been trampled by unbridled Israeli violence, collective punishment and the slaughter of innocents in the Middle East. This brutal and ill-timed attack threatens the high-level diplomacy which was resumed so recently to build peace in the Middle East”, he said.

Akram said that the Security Council and the international community must continue to call for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops from the territories reoccupied in recent weeks, an end to all violence, an end to the economic strangulation of the Palestinians and an end to the paralysis in the process of realizing a just peace in the Middle East.”