Injured Palestinians, including children and women, are taken to the Kuwait Field Hospital following the Israeli attack, in Khan Yunis, Gaza, Saturday, July 13, 2024. The attack killed 71 people. Al-Mawasi has been declared a security zone by Israel as it continues its military offensive in other parts of the Gaza Strip. Photo by Saber Arar/UPI | Licensed Photo
July 21 (UPI) – The Pakistani government has formed a committee to identify and boycott companies operating in the country after declaring that Israel is a “war crimes entity” in connection with the war in Gaza.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a criminal terrorist,” the statement said, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency. “Netanyahu is responsible for the atrocities committed by Israeli forces in Palestine. We consider him a terrorist and call on the international community to declare Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu a terrorist.”
Rana Sanaullah, political adviser to Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, said Pakistan would identify companies that could “support Israel directly or indirectly.”
Hamas and Yemen’s Houthis welcomed the statement from Islamabad and promised that there would be “no red lines” in their response to Israel’s airstrike on a Yemeni port city on Saturday.
“We view this announcement as a step in support of our people who are facing genocide and ethnic cleansing at the hands of the terrorist Zionists,” Hamas said in a statement.
“We call on all countries to take positions and measures to isolate and boycott the fascist occupation element.”
Hamas added that it was calling for “effective measures” to protect the two Christian holy sites in Palestine and the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount from “desecration by fascist settlers”.
The site is often a flashpoint for tensions between Israeli officials in Tel Aviv and Palestinians in Jerusalem. Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extremist Israeli politician who lives in an illegal settlement in the West Bank, made an inflammatory visit to the mosque last week. And Israeli police raided the site several times before Hamas’s attack on Israel in October.
“Pakistan also strongly condemns the ongoing genocidal attack by Israeli occupation forces on schools and shelters in the Gaza Strip,” the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Pakistan reiterated its belief in a two-state solution to end the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians with the establishment of a State of Palestine along the pre-1967 borders and with Jerusalem as its capital.
