Israeli | Pakistan

Pakistan on Tuesday called upon the international community to take “urgent” action against Israeli military aggression in Lebanon, the Foreign Office (FO) said. Lebanon was dragged into the US-Israeli war on Iran this month when Lebanese group Hezbollah launched rockets and drones into Israel, which responded with heavy bombardment across the country. A total of 486 people have been killed in the war so far and 1,313 injured, of which 259 are children, according to the World Health Organisation. In a statement, the FO condemned “Israel’s continued military aggression against Lebanon,” which it said has resulted in the “death of hundreds of civilians and the displacement of nearly half a million people”. FO maintained that Israeli actions were in “contravention of international law” and were “undermining the efforts of the government of Lebanon to ensure peace and stability in the country”. It held that Israel’s recent actions “have the potential to further exacerbate the ongoing security and humanitarian cri...

Members of the Lebanese Civil Defence extinguish a fire in a building after an Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs.—Reuters • Lebanese parliament postpones legislative elections for two years • Lebanese president says Hezbollah risks state collapse, suggests full truce, direct talks BEIRUT: The Israeli onslaught in Leb­anon has displaced nearly 700,000 people, with reports of children among the casualties, as the conflict with the Leba­nese resistance group Hezbollah enters its second week, a UN agency said on Monday. “Mass displacement across Leb­­a­non has forced nearly 700,000 people including around 200,000 children from their homes, adding to the tens of thousands already uprooted from previous escalations,” UNICEF Reg­ional Direc­tor Edouard Beigbeder said. “Children are being killed and injured at a horrifying rate, families are fleeing their homes in fear, and thousands of children are now sleeping in cold and overcrowded shelters.” Lebanon, a country of 6 million, has turned its largest sport...

GWADAR: A fisherman from Gwadar was killed after the debris of an Israeli projectile intercepted by Iranian air defence systems hit his boat in Iranian waters, officials said on Sunday. Gwadar Deputy Commissioner (DC) Naqibullah Kakar confirmed the incident to Dawn that took place on Saturday, saying that the deceased was identified as Muhammad Tayyab, a resident of Gannz, a small coastal town in Balochistan’s Gwadar district. District Police Officer Attaur Rehman also confirmed the incident and told Dawn that Tayyab “went into Iranian waters for Iranian oil”. DC Kakar believes an attempt was made to attack fishing boats in a coastal area of Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province, but the projectile was intercepted and destroyed by the Iranian air defence system. “A portion of the debris from that drone or missile hit Tayyab’s fishing boat, resulting in his death,” he added. The officials said Tayyab’s body was taken to his native town, Gannz, via the sea, and he was later buried. Iran, a neighbour of Pakistan, h...

108 killed in Israeli strike on girls school in Iran

• Israel’s Supreme Court freezes ban on foreign aid organisations in enclave • US public sympathy shifts to Palestinians over Israel, new Gallup poll reveals CAIRO: Relentless Israeli attacks killed at least seven Palestinians in Gaza on Friday, medics said, adding to a death toll of at least 600 people killed by Israeli fire since a US-brokered ceasefire agreement came into effect last October. Gaza’s health officials reported that in southern Gaza, five people were killed and several others were injured, some critically, in Israeli drone strikes. The strikes targeted two police checkpoints in Khan Yunis and in the Abu Hujair area northwest of the Bureij refugee camp later in the day, medics said. Separately, an Israeli airstrike against a group of Palestinians in Gaza City’s Tuffah neighbourhood in northern Gaza killed two people and wounded several others. Ban on NGOs frozen Meanwhile, Israel’s Supreme Court decided in a ruling published on Friday to freeze a government ban on 37 foreign NGOs working in Ga...

Muslim and European countries, including Pakistan, on Wednesday condemned Israeli attempts aimed at the “unacceptable de facto annexation” of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank. A joint statement by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Brazil, France, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Egypt, Pakistan, Luxembourg, Norway, Palestine, Portugal, Qatar, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Türkiye, United Arab Emirates, the League of Arab States and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation said that recent changes made by Israel to reclaim land in the occupied West Bank as “state property” are “wide-ranging” and accelerate illegal settlement activity and further entrench Israeli administration. Earlier this month, the Israeli government approved a proposal to register large areas of the occupied West Bank as “state property” for the first time since the Israeli occupation of the territory in 1967, in clear violation of international law, which states that an occupying power cannot confiscate land in occupied territories....

Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday that Hamas may soon be given a deadline to lay down its weapons. “We estimate that in the coming days, Hamas will be given an ultimatum to disarm and completely demilitarise Gaza,” Smotrich said in an interview with public broadcaster Kan. Israel invaded the Gaza Strip in 2023, in retaliation for Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack. Under the first phase of a US-sponsored ceasefire in Gaza intended to halt two years of Isreali onslaught in Gaza, the Israeli army withdrew to positions behind a so-called Yellow Line, but still controls over half of the territory. Both Hamas and Israel accuse each other of near-daily ceasefire violations, with the health ministry in Gaza reporting 615 people killed by Israeli forces since the truce started. The Israeli military says it has lost five of its soldiers during the same period. If Hamas does not comply with the Israeli ultimatum to disarm, the army “will have international legitimacy and American ba...

GENEVA: Israel’s increased attacks and forcible transfers of Palestinians “raise concerns over ethnic cleansing” in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, the United Nations said on Thursday. The cumulative impact of Israel’s military conduct during the conflict in Gaza and blockade of the territory, has inflicted living conditions “increasingly incompatible with Palestinians’ continued existence as a group in Gaza”, said the UN human rights office. “Intensified attacks, the methodical destruction of entire neighbourhoods and the denial of humanitarian assistance appeared to aim at a permanent demographic shift in Gaza,” the office said in a report. “This, together with forcible transfers, which appear to aim at a permanent displacement, raise concerns over ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank.” The report covered Nov 1, 2024 to Oct 31, 2025. It highlighted the Israeli security forces’ “systematic use of unlawful force” in the occupied West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem. The report also pointed to “widespread”...

Israeli police has arrested the imam of Al-Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Mohammed al-Abbasi, from inside the mosque’s courtyards in occupied Jerusalem. The Palestinian news agency Wafa, citing local sources, reported that “Israeli forces detained Sheikh al-Abbasi inside the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque“ on Monday evening without giving any reason. It added that the arrest “comes amid escalating Israeli measures against the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, including restrictions on imams, preachers and worshippers stationed there, limitations on the entry of worshippers, and intensifying incursions carried out by settlers under heavy protection from Israeli police”. Hamas condemned the arrest of al-Abbasi in a statement on Tuesday, saying he had been “served with an order banning him from the mosque”. The movement said the measure “constitutes blatant interference in the affairs of Al-Aqsa and an unacceptable assault on its imams”. Hamas added: “The escalating violations by the fascist occupation government against the sanctity ...

Eight Muslim countries, including Pakistan, on Tuesday condemned the Israeli move to claim land in the occupied West Bank as “state property”, saying that the step reflected an attempt to “impose a new legal and administrative reality designed to consolidate control over the occupied land”. Al Jazeera reported on Sunday that the Israeli government had approved a proposal to register large areas of the occupied West Bank as “state property”, for the first time since the Israeli occupation of the territory in 1967, in clear violation of international law that states an occupying power cannot confiscate land in occupied territories. Israel’s foreign ministry claimed the measure, approved late on Sunday, would enable “transparent and thorough clarification of rights to resolve legal disputes” but the move drew strong condemnations from across the globe for its violation of international law. In a joint statement issued on Tuesday, the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indones...

Gaza’s civil defence agency reported that Israeli strikes killed at least 12 people since dawn on Sunday, while a military official said the attacks were in response to ceasefire violations. Despite a US-brokered truce that entered its second phase last month, violence has continued in the Palestinian territory, with Israel and Hamas blaming each other for violating the agreement. The civil defence agency, which operates as a rescue force, said one strike hit a tent of displaced people in northern Gaza and another targeted an area in the south. Five people were killed and several were injured when an air strike targeted a tent sheltering displaced people in Jabalia in the north, the agency said in a statement. Five more were killed and several were injured in a separate early morning strike in the southern city of Khan Younis, the agency said, adding that one more was killed in Israeli shelling in Gaza City. The agency also said that one person was killed by Israeli gunfire in Beit Lahia in north Gaza. The Al...

Eight Muslim countries, including Pakistan, in a joint statement on Monday, warned against the “continued expansionist Israeli policies” in the occupied West Bank. In the statement, the foreign minister of Pakistan — along with those of Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Indonesia, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Qatar — “condemned in the strongest terms the illegal Israeli decisions and measures aimed at imposing unlawful Israeli sovereignty, entrenching settlement activity, and enforcing a new legal and administrative reality in the occupied West Bank, thereby accelerating attempts at its illegal annexation and the displacement of the Palestinian people”. The statement comes a day after Israel’s security cabinet approved a series of steps that would make it easier for settlers in the occupied West Bank to buy land while granting Israeli authorities more enforcement powers over Palestinians, according to Israeli media. Citing statements by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel K...

In the latest violence to undermine the ceasefire in Gaza, health officials said Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes killed 20 Palestinians, including four children, on Wednesday. Among the dead was a medic who rushed to help victims of a strike in the southern city of Khan Younis and was then killed by a second attack on the same location, health officials said. Other strikes hit Gaza City in the north, where health officials said a five-month-old boy was killed. The attacks come three days after Israel reopened Gaza’s main border crossing with Egypt, a major step in the US-backed truce. The Israeli military claimed it had launched the strikes in response to gunmen opening fire against Israeli troops operating near its armistice line with Hamas. It said an Israeli soldier was severely injured by the fire. Wednesday’s attacks bring the number of Palestinians killed since the border reopened to 28, according to a tally from Gazan health officials. On Saturday, before its reopening, Israeli strikes killed more...

US, Israeli top generals held undisclosed meeting as officials give no further details

• Palestinian territory’s civil defence agency says victims include children • Bloodshed comes after Tel Aviv announced it would reopen Rafah crossing today for ‘limited movement of people’ GAZA CITY: Israeli air strikes killed 32 people including children in Gaza on Saturday, according to the Palestinian territory’s civil defence agency. Despite a US-brokered truce entering its second phase earlier this month, violence in the Palestinian territory has continued, with both Israel and Hamas accusing each other of violating the agreement. The latest bloodshed comes after Israel announced it would reopen the crucial Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt on Sunday (today) for the “limited movement of people”. “The death toll since dawn today has risen to 32, most of them children and women,” said the civil defence agency, a rescue force operating under the Hamas authority, updating an earlier toll of 28. “Residential apartments, tents, shelters and a police station were targeted, resulting in this humanitarian ca...

An Israeli air strike killed an AFP freelancer and two other journalists in Gaza on Wednesday, the territory’s civil defence agency said, while the military said it struck “suspects” operating a drone. Since October 10, a fragile US-sponsored ceasefire in Gaza has largely halted the fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas, but both sides have alleged frequent violations. In a statement, the civil defence said “the bodies of the three journalists killed in an Israeli air strike in the Al-Zahra area southwest of Gaza City were transported to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah”. It named the dead as Mohammed Salah Qashta, Abdul Raouf Shaat and Anas Ghneim. Shaat had contributed regularly to AFP as a photo and video journalist, but at the time of the strike, he was not on assignment for the agency. In a statement, the Israeli military said troops had “identified several suspects who operated a drone affiliated with Hamas in the central Gaza Strip”. The military did not elaborate on what it meant by a “dr...

Pakistan and a wide selection of Muslim countries issued a joint statement on Thursday condemning a visit by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar to Somaliland earlier this week. On Tuesday, Saar arrived in Somaliland for a high-profile visit, condemned by Somalia as an “unauthorised incursion”, after Israel recognised the breakaway region in the Horn of Africa. The joint statement, issued by the Foreign Office (FO) today, was issued on behalf of the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Gambia, Indonesia, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Nigeria, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Türkiye and Yemen, as well as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. It recalled the earlier statement condemning Israeli recognition and “expressed strong condemnation” of the Israeli FM’s visit. “The said visit constitutes a clear violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Somalia, and undermines established international nor...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will depart for the United States on Sunday and meet with President Donald Trump in Florida a day later, an Israeli official told AFP. It will be Netanyahu’s fifth visit to see Trump in the United States this year. His trip comes as the Trump administration and regional mediators push to proceed to the second stage of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Trump told reporters in mid-December that Netanyahu would probably visit him in Florida during the Christmas holidays. “He would like to see me. We haven’t set it up formally, but he’d like to see me,” Trump said before leaving for his Mar-a-Lago resort. Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported on Wednesday that a wide range of regional issues was expected to be discussed, including Iran, talks on an Israel-Syria security agreement, the ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the next stages of the Gaza deal. Progress in moving to the second phase of October’s Gaza ceasefire agreement, which w...

Rules arrest warrants for Israeli PM remains in place

Pakistan rubbished claims published in an Amnesty International report on Thursday that a spyware, manufactured by an Israeli company, was actively being used in the country. According to a senior intelligence officer, who spoke to Dawn on condition of anonymity, the report was an “an attempt to malign Pakistan”. “There is not an iota of truth in it,” he stressed. The official was referring to a claim made in the Amnesty International investigation, titled “Intellexa Leaks”, which described the story of a human rights lawyer based in Pakistan. The lawyer, according to the report, had approached Amnesty International in the summer of 2025 after receiving a suspicious link on WhatsApp from an unknown number. Amnesty Security Lab investigated the link and identified it as a Predator attack attempt based on the technical behaviour of the infection server. Predator is a highly invasive spyware manufactured by the Israeli company Intellexa. According to Amnesty International, the investigation was based on a combin...