Pakistan calls for immediate lifting of Gaza blockade amid coronavirus outbreak

This file photo shows a general view of the premises of Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad on Jan. 22, 2020. (AN photo)

• The foreign office demands an immediate end to Israeli siege to help people of Palestine fight COVID-19
• Analysts describe Israeli action as inhuman, call for swift action from world powers

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Thursday condemned Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip and called for its immediate lifting to help Palestinians effectively fight the coronavirus pandemic.
“Blockade of the Gaza Strip violates international law and is condemnable,” said the foreign office spokesperson, Aisha Farooqui, during her weekly media briefing in Islamabad. “Pakistan calls for the immediate lifting of the blockade in order for Palestine to fight against the coronavirus pandemic.”
Israel linked any medical assistance to the residents of the area to the recovery of its two soldiers who disappeared during the 2014 war in the Palestinian enclave.
Blockaded and impoverished, Gaza has reported 13 coronavirus cases and authorities worry that local health care facilities — with just 96 ventilators for a population of two million — are insufficient to deal with the contagion.
A Palestinian health ministry official said on Wednesday that the Gaza Strip had stopped testing people at its labs after coronavirus test kits completely ran out, indicating that a major catastrophe was waiting to happen if the infectious respiratory illness spread in the densely populated enclave.
“We reiterate our support for a viable, independent and contiguous State of Palestine, on the basis of internationally agreed parameters, the pre-1967 borders with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital,” said the Pakistani spokesperson.
The country’s former ambassador, Asif Durrani, who also served in the Middle East, termed the Israeli blockade of medical supplies to the Gaza Strip as an inhuman act.
“The Israeli action is totally inhuman and against all basic norms. When the whole world is fighting COVID-19, Israel has put millions of lives at stake. They have already conducted gross human rights violations and now this will increase the suffering of Palestine people,” Durrani told Arab News, adding that the United Nations and influential international countries should exert pressure on Israel to ensure proper supply of medical equipment required to deal with the pandemic in the Palestinian territories.