Faad Waheed, Acting President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people whose lives are being destroyed by the Israeli forces and called on the international community to intervene to bring an end to the ongoing conflict, protect civilians and work towards a lasting peace in the Middle East. He said this while addressing a meeting of the business community at ICCI.

Faad Waheed said that the Pakistani nation including the business community is deeply concerned over the escalating hostility in Gaza, which is causing great loss of innocent lives and stressed that the world leaders should come together to work for the cessation of hostilities, protection of civilians and for a lasting peace in the Middle East.

Faad Waheed said that the business community fully stands in solidarity with the Palestinians in this tragic time and called for an immediate end to the violence and oppression by Israeli occupation forces. He said that Israeli forces have so far killed over 2800 Palestinians and stressed that there is an urgent need to stop the mad bombing of innocent people and alleviate the suffering of Pal¬estinian civilians in Gaza.

He said that the unfolding situation in the Middle East is creating lot of concerns in the Muslim community around the world as innocent civilians are being killed and the survivors are also facing great problems without shelter, water, food, medicines, electricity making their lives miserable. He stressed that all stakeholders should put their heads together to seek an end to the conflict in order to prevent further bloodshed and loss of innocent human lives.

Engr. Azhar ul Islam Zafar Vice President ICCI said that the United Nations should play an active role to prevent both sides from further escalating the conflict and work for a long overdue peaceful resolution of the dispute in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions and international law. He said that the enduring peace in the Middle East lies in a two-state solution with a viable, sovereign State of Palestine, founded on pre-1967 borders, with Al Quds Al-Sharif at its heart.

Khalid Iqbal Malik Group Leader ICCI, Abdul Waheed, Khalid Javed, Zafar Bakhtawari, Tariq Sadiq, Muhammad Ejaz Abbasi, Muhammad Shabbir and others also spoke on the occasion and urged that the world community should come forward to stop Israeli aggression against the innocent Palestinian people.