Pakistan says terror attacks in Lebanon ‘manifestation of Israeli adventurism’
Pakistan has strongly condemned the “terror attacks” across Lebanon, where more than 30 were killed and thousands injured in waves of electronic device explosions, the Foreign Office (FO) said on Thursday.
Lebanon’s hospitals were overwhelmed on Tuesday as pagers used by armed group Hezbollah detonated, killing 12 people, including two children, and wounding nearly 3,000 others in an unprecedented attack blamed on Israel.
The next day, a second deadly wave of unprecedented explosions in Hezbollah’s strongholds killed at least 14 and injured more than 450 — further stoking tensions with Israel.
Lebanese officials told Reuters Israel’s Mossad spy agency planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Hezbollah months before Tuesday’s detonations.
The operation was an unprecedented Hezbollah security breach, with the group left in disarray on Thursday, hours before a major speech by its beleaguered leader Hassan Nasrallah.
Addressing a weekly briefing in Islamabad, FO spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said: “Pakistan strongly condemns this week’s attacks in Lebanon, carried through detonation of electronic equipments. Use of cyber and electronic means to commit terrorism in foreign countries is reprehensible.
“We condemn terrorism in all forms and manifestations and offer our deepest condolences to the families of the victims and the people and the government of the Republic of Lebanon.”
The FO highlighted that the “terror attacks are a manifestation of Israel’s alarming adventurism in the region, which has endangered regional peace and security”.
“Pakistan reaffirms its support to Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and calls upon the international community to take urgent steps to hold Israel to account on its acts of international terrorism and violations of international law,” Baloch said.
Pakistan also strongly condemned the September 12 Israeli air strikes on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza, which killed 18 people, including six United Nations staffers.
“The horrifying massacre — that also included deaths of staff — is yet another crime committed by Israel in Gaza since October last year,” Baloch said.
“These ongoing attacks on civilian targets including refugee camps also go against the spirit of ICJs provisional measures, which call for the provision of essential services and humanitarian assistance to address the challenges faced by the Palestinians in Gaza.”
She said that Pakistan called for “full implementation of ICJ’s advisory opinion” which emphasised the illegal nature of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, adding that the country also highlighted “the urgent need for the international community to uphold the right to self-determination for the Palestinian people”.
“This includes an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to bring about an end to the suffering faced by the people of Gaza,” she added.