File photo, courtesy PID
Interim Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar on Thursday announced the government is banning all New Year’s Eve related events nationwide in solidarity with Palestinians, who have been subject to brutal atrocities from Israel since the events of Oct. 7.
“The entire Pakistani nation and the Muslim Ummah were deeply saddened by the genocide of the oppressed Palestinians, especially the massacre of innocent children, in Gaza and the West Bank,” he said in a nationally televised address. “Keeping in mind the seriously concerning situation in Palestine and to show solidarity with our Palestinian brothers and sisters, there will be a strict ban by the government on holding any kind of event for New Year’s,” he said and requested Pakistanis to observe simplicity in the dawn of the New Year.
Noting Israel has killed over 21,000 Palestinians by crossing “all limits of violence and injustice,” he said this number included around 9,000 children. Pakistan, he maintained, had conveyed the plight of the Palestinian people at every global forum, adding it would continue to do so in the future to stop the Israeli bloodshed. Among Islamabad’s relief efforts, he said, was the dispatching of two aid packages to Palestine. A third aid package is also being prepared, he added.
Pakistan, said Kakar, is currently engaged in talks with Jordan and Egypt to provide timely aid to Palestine and to evacuate the injured present in Gaza.
Traditionally, Pakistanis arrange several functions—both private and government-led—to mark the New Year, attracting young and old alike.
Apart from Pakistan, Sharjah, an emirate of the U.A.E., has also banned New Year’s Eve fireworks this year to mark solidarity with the people of Gaza. The ban is “a sincere expression of solidarity and humanitarian cooperation with our siblings in the Gaza Strip,” Sharjah police said in a post on Facebook.