By iftikhar Ali UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 (APP):Pakistan has urged the UN Security Council to hold Israel accountable for the systematic displacement of Palestinians, demanding a total halt to all illegal settlement activities and an immediate reversal of measures designed to alter the demographic character of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. "The Council must respond because the situation in the occupied West Bank is deteriorating rapidly," Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, permanent …
Pakistan urges UNSC to halt systematic Palestinian displacement and reverse illegal settlements
By iftikhar Ali
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 (APP):Pakistan has urged the UN Security Council to hold Israel accountable for the systematic displacement of Palestinians, demanding a total halt to all illegal settlement activities and an immediate reversal of measures designed to alter the demographic character of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
“The Council must respond because the situation in the occupied West Bank is deteriorating rapidly,” Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, permanent representative of Pakistan to the UN, told the 15-member Council which met in emergency on Tuesday amid escalating Israeli violence in the West Bank affecting Palestinians.
“What we are witnessing is a clear pattern of coordinated, illegal measures designed to entrench the occupation, alter the demographic and territorial realities on ground and undermine the prospects of a Palestinian state,” the Pakistani envoy added, highlighting that settlement expansion has reached an “alarming scale.”
At the outset, the UN Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Ramiz Alakbarov, warned that the West Bank is at the “breaking point.”
As of 10 August, he said, 76 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in 2026, as had three Israelis – including one civilian and two Israeli security force members. In 2026 alone, 3,800 Palestinians – nearly half of them children – have been displaced due to settler violence, demolitions and evictions.
“Settler violence has reached unprecedented levels,” Alakbarov stressed, noting that the UN has documented more than 1,430 incidents this year, affecting some 260 Palestinian communities.
“The pattern is clear”, he said: Palestinians are being forcibly displaced across the West Bank before settlers seize the vacated land. Settler attacks, previously concentrated in Area C, are increasingly reported in Area B and even Area A.
Palestine’s Ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, blamed Israel for creating the conditions for violence, guaranteeing its soldiers and settlers impunity and unleashing them against Palestinian communities, refugee camps and villages to “torment and terrorize”.
In the West Bank, he notably denounced attacks against the Palestinian Authority, whose role is essential in preserving Palestinian presence – and whose collapse Israel is seeking in hopes of forcing the transfer Palestinians outside of Palestine.
“The future of the region is at stake,” Ambassador Mansour insisted. “International will cannot bow before the colonial whims of the Israeli Government.”
In his remarks, Ambassador Asim Ahmad, the Pakistani envoy, also drew attention to the continued withholding of Palestinian revenues that are severely undermining Palestinian institutions, and called for their release.
“We are equally alarmed by escalating provocations at Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif”, he said, adding that he cumulative effect of these actions is intimidation, dispossession, and forced displacement, thereby perpetuating cycle of occupation and annexation.
In Gaza, the Pakistani envoy said, the humanitarian situation is extremely fragile. US President Donald Trump’s Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict provided an important opportunity to alleviate humanitarian suffering and advance a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood, he said.
Pakistan, he said, has welcomed the positive developments under the Trump’s Board of Peace (BoP) towards the implementation of the Gaza Peace Plan and Resolution 2803, which authorized the establishment of the Board as a transitional governance administration and a temporary International Stabilization Force tasked with demilitarizing Gaza and providing security.
“We appreciate the mediators, including the United States of America, Egypt, Qatar, and Turkiye, for their sustained efforts However, Israel’s continuing military escalations, and rejection of the Roadmap, risk undermining this diplomatic process and jeopardizing the prospects for peace.”
Ambassador Asim Ahmad urged the Council to ensure that Israel, the occupying power, immediately halt all settlement activity, and reverse all unlawful measures aimed at altering the status, character and demographic composition of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
He underscored the need for end to the settler violence, and hold accountable those responsible as well as provide international protection to the Palestinians.
“Israel must respect the historical and legal status quo at the holy sites including Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif and halt all provocative actions,” the Pakistani envoy stressed.
“The path to peace lies in ending the Israeli occupation and enabling the Palestinian people to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination, through the establishment of an independent, sovereign, viable and contiguous State of Palestine, based on the pre-1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital. It is the only credible foundation for a just, lasting and comprehensive peace,” Ambassador Asim Ahmad added.
