Pakistan has backed calls for an international investigation into Israeli attack on Beit Hanoun, and asked Israel to end its military campaign in occupied Gaza while stressing the need for a resolution of the Middle East question. "It is time to end Israel's conflicts with all its neighbours," Pakistan's U.N. Ambassador Munir Akram told the U.N. Security Council, which met to discuss intensifying Israeli military operations in Gaza, according to an official statement. "It is time, first and foremost, to end the tragedy of Palestine, which is the core of the Middle East conflict and the major source of the humiliation, anger and desperation that is felt by people throughout the Muslim world." Akram said it was a measure of the impunity enjoyed by Israel that, even as the Council decided to meet, there were additional horrendous actions, such as those on Wednesday in Beit Hanoun. Indeed, Ambassador Akram said, the renewed violence that had risen sharply in recent months had been a setback to the quest for the settlement of the Palestinian question and a durable Middle East peace. He said it was unfortunate that the Council had not followed up on the Arab Peace Initiative; there was a crying need for the Council to restore its credibility. Given the threat to international peace and security, and the responsibility entrusted to the Council by the United Nations Charter, it must respond to call for an immediate ceasefire and establish a sustainable, credible and verifiable peace in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Akram urged the two sides to take simultaneous confidence-building measures. Israel must end its campaign in Gaza, release Palestinian prisoners, remove checkpoints and other obstacles to movement, halt and reverse construction of the wall, freeze settlement activities and the building of outposts, release customs and back payments belonging to the Palestinian Authority and accept negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians, he said, must halt rocket attacks, secure the release of the Israeli soldier, achieve internal cohesion and establish a national unity government to negotiate with Israel. The Middle East conflict was the greatest threat to global security, to the fight against terrorism, to the promotion of harmony among civilizations and to the credibility of the United Nations. We must put out this fire, the Pakistan ambassador said.
