Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has called for the declaration of an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza, the opening of a humanitarian corridor and urged the international community to hold Israel accountable for its military offensive in the besieged enclave.

Dar arrived in The Gambia on Wednesday to represent Pakistan at the 15th Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit in Banjul on May 4 and 5. Besides attending the OIC summit, the newly appointed deputy prime minister will also hold bilateral meetings with dignitaries from the member countries.

The October 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas and the ensuing Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed nearly 35,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health ministry figures, obliterated much of the enclave’s infrastructure and created a humanitarian crisis verging on famine. About 1,200 people in southern Israel were killed in the October 7 attack

Addressing the Preparatory Meeting of Foreign Ministers on Thursday, ahead of the 15th Session of the OIC’s Islamic Summit Conference, FM Dar emphasised the need to implement UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution 2728 to cease hostilities and demand Israel to halt settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories and relinquish all Palestinian properties.

He expressed Pakistan’s “deep concern” about the ongoing “genocide and starvation of Gaza people” and called for the reactivation of the OIC’s Ministerial Committee on Israeli aggression against the Palestinians, offering Pakistan’s assistance to the body.

The deputy prime minister reaffirmed Pakistan’s full support for the Palestinian people’s “inalienable right to self-determination” and stated that the only permanent solution to the crisis lay in the creation of a “secure, viable, contiguous, and sovereign state of Palestine based on the pre-June 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital”.

Dar also strongly condemned “oppressive state action in Indian-held Kashmir, including extrajudicial killings and media blackouts”. He pledged Pakistan’s “unwavering diplomatic support” for the Kashmiri people’s right to self-determination, as mandated by relevant UNSC resolutions.

The deputy PM also stressed joint action by the OIC to confront rising Islamophobia, which he said “has manifested in more frequent discrimination and acts of violence and incitement against Muslims around the world”.

He said that while social media platforms had established a clear understanding of content relating to “antisemitism” and “holocaust denial”, the same was “not the case for blasphemous or anti-Islamic content”.

Dar said this content was “responsible for widespread distress among Muslims and the global wave of Islamophobia”.

The deputy prime minister urged the OIC to formulate a joint strategy to influence global information networks and platforms to harmonise their application of content regulation policies for blasphemous, anti-Islamic and Islamophobic content.

The OIC foreign ministers adopted the report of the Senior Officials’ Meeting and finalised various documents, including the Resolution on the Issue of Palestine, the Final Communique of the OIC Summit Conference and the Banjul Declaration.