Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Gen Asim Munir on Tuesday expressed grave concern over the “indiscriminate killing” of Palestinians in Gaza and called on the international community to put an end to the “unlawful use of force” by the Israeli military.

He passed these remarks during a meeting with Palestinian Ambassador to Pakistan Ahmed Jawad Rabei at the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, the military’s media wing.

According to the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza, more than 5,700 people, including over 2,000 children, have been killed in relentless Israeli bombing since October 7. A humanitarian crisis has gripped the besieged enclave, with hospitals shutting down due to a shortage of fuel.

In a press release issued today, the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said the army chief expressed condolences over the loss of Palestinian lives.

“The COAS expressed grave concern over unabated violence and willful, indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians by the Israeli Defence Forces in the war. Incessant attacks on the civilian population, schools, universities, aid workers, hospitals and the forced exodus of Palestinians from Gaza are manifest crimes against humanity,” it stated.

The army chief also reiterated Pakistan’s principled support for an “independent, viable and contiguous state of Palestine established on the basis of pre-1967 borders with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital”.

“Pakistan believes that the fresh spate of violence in Gaza is the result of unabated repression, continued human rights violations and state-sponsored sacrilege of Al Aqsa mosque.

“Conflating this war with terrorism would be naive; taking a narrow and self-serving view of the issue as an isolated attack, obscures brutal oppression spanning decades that has led to this outcome,” the ISPR quoted the COAS as saying.

Gen Munir further stated it was imperative that the international community must be mobilised to put an early end to unfolding human tragedy due to “disproportionate and unlawful use of force by the IDF”.

He also called upon the global community to desist from “encouraging them [Israeli forces] to continue perpetrating atrocities in manifest violation of all norms of civility and humane conduct”.