Aamir Latif
17 May 2021•Update: 17 May 2021
KARACHI, Pakistan
Pakistan's lower parliamentary house -- the National Assembly -- on Monday unanimously adopted a resolution condemning Israeli aggression against Palestinians and the killing of hundreds of civilians, including women and children, in the ongoing bombardment of Gaza.
National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser dedicated the session, summoned specially to pass the resolution, to the people of Palestine.
Sporting a Palestinian "Keffiyeh" -- a checkered black and white scarf -- around his neck in a show of solidarity with Palestinians, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi tabled the resolution, which was supported by opposition leader Shehbaz Sharif.
"This House expresses deep concern over the increasing violence and brutality perpetrated against the Palestinian people by the Israeli apartheid regime," read the resolution.
It strongly condemned the "systematic and institutionalized" oppression and domination of the Palestinian people by Israel and denounced the systematic and brutal disenfranchisement, exclusion, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
The National Assembly slammed the Israeli forces' attacks on worshippers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as well as attempts to stop the Islamic call to prayer.
Rejecting the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, it called upon the UN to immediately intervene to halt the killing of Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the speakers of the Turkish and Pakistani parliaments spoke over phone on Monday to discuss the worsening humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.
In his conversation with Qaiser, Turkey's Mustafa Sentop noted that the killing of innocent civilians demanded immediate punitive action against Israel, according to a statement from the National Assembly Secretariat.
Qaiser invited his Turkish counterpart to participate in the upcoming session of the Parliamentary Organization of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), slated to be held in the Iranian capital Tehran on May 24.
Sentop, for his part, called for unity among the Muslim countries on the Palestine issue.
Israeli bombings have killed at least 200 Palestinians with children accounting for at least 60 of the deaths. The attacks have injured more than 1,300 people and left behind a massive trail of destruction across the territory with media offices and health centers among the structures that have been targeted.
The recent tensions that started in East Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan spread to Gaza as a result of Israeli assaults on worshippers in the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It annexed the entire city in 1980 in a move never recognized by the international community.
