UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has criticised the UN Security Council’s inability to resolve the Palestinian issue and end Israeli atrocities and violence in the region.

Participating in a debate on a report by a special committee on Palestine, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Maleeha Lodi described as “disconcerting” the assessment from Washington earlier this week that prospects of resolving the Palestinian issue remained bleak.

She also criticised Israel for refusing access to international organisations for investigating the situation on ground and called for an end to the Israeli blockade of Gaza, now in its eighth year.

Also read: Pakistan criticises world community for not acting decisively on massive human suffering

Voicing concern over rising incidents of violence, Ms Lodhi said: “A third and more intense Intifada is being forecast.”

She highlighted the plight of the Palestinian people including women and children continue to suffer brutal repression. “Restrictions on Palestinian freedom and rights, harassment by Israeli settlers, terror and provocation in and around the holy sites, including the Al Aqsa mosque compound, and bleak prospects for a negotiated and comprehensive peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians”, are all compounding the suffering of the Palestinian people, she said.

Israeli refusal to allow world organisations’ access to investigate the situation on ground assailed

She recalled the concern raised by the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights over the high number of casualties, especially those resulting from the use of live ammunition by occupation forces and said that limitations on use of force placed by international law applied where a military occupying power operated in civilian areas.

She denounced the new discriminatory legislation enacted by Israeli lawmakers targeting Palestinian minors, which imposes a mandatory minimum penalty of four-year imprisonment for stone throwing.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2015