President Asif Ali Zardari, and the President of Iran Ebrahim Raisi, talked on the phone and greeted each other for Eid-ul-Fitr. President Asif Ali Zardari expressed his sincere condolences and sympathy to the Iranian leadership and the families who lost loved ones in the Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus during the conversation.
Zardari voiced his worry about the humanitarian crisis and the genocide happening because of Israeli forces. He demanded an instant ceasefire in Gaza.
President Asif Ali Zardari assured his Iranian counterpart that Pakistan would continue to work with Iran in all areas of mutual interest to further boost bilateral cooperation.
He emphasized the importance of improving how information is shared to tackle the security issues both countries are dealing with.
A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight from Jeddah to Islamabad, carrying Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz back from their visit to Saudi Arabia, was diverted to Lahore on Monday.
Flight PK842 was supposed to land in Islamabad at 10:30pm on Monday night but was diverted to Allama Iqbal International Airport, Lahore and landed there at 9:25pm.
The commercial flight was carrying 393 passengers which had the official delegation returning from Pakistan, including the Defence Minister, the PM, the CM and their family members.
Videos circulating online showed passengers expressing resentment for the problems caused to them.
After offloading about 79 passengers at Lahore, the flight did take off for Islamabad and landed there at 11:17pm.
Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan thanked his fans gathered outside his home Mannat in Mumbai on Eid through a message on X (formerly Twitter) saying, “Eid Mubarak everyone… and thank you for making my day so special. May Allah bless us all with love, happiness and prosperity.”
Later, Salman Khan, Bollywood’s Sultan, also came to the balcony of his Galaxy home in Bandra and greeted his fans on Eid by waving to them. Salman Khan was with his father Salim Khan and some of his armed bodyguards. He also wished “Eid Mubarak” on his X (twitter) During this time, an unpleasant incident happened when some fans tried to break the security barricade, and the police had to use baton charging.
Eid Mubarak everyone… and thank you for making my day so special. May Allah bless us all with love, happiness and prosperity. pic.twitter.com/qy649HJqNw
Justice Yahya Afridi of the Supreme Court has withdrawn himself from the suo motu case that the apex court took up after receiving a letter from Islamabad High Court (IHC) judges, alleging complaints about intelligence agencies interfering in judicial matters.
Justice Afridi, who was part of the seven-member bench hearing the case, added his recusal in a note attached to the written order issued after the first hearing.
The judge said the judges should consider the issues in the letter from the IHC judges according to the code of conduct of the Supreme Judicial Council. “High Courts are independent courts under the Constitution. Article 184/3 should not be invoked on independence of high courts,” Justice Yahya maintained. The seven-member bench conducting the hearing of suo motu case is headed by Chief Justice Qazi Faez Isa and comprised six other judges — Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, Justice Yahya Afridi, Justice Jamal Khan Mandokhel, Justice Athar Minallah, Justice Musarrat Hilali and Justice Naeem Akhtar Afghan.
On Thursday, Shehrbano Qureshi, daughter of imprisoned Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Vice Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi, said that her father is hopeful and believes that justice will be served in the country.
Talking to journalists outside Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail after visiting her father, she states that she met Qureshi last Monday and found him to be in good health.
“Qureshi is very hopeful and seeing justice being done in the country,” the PTI leader said, adding that the bravery showed by six judges of the Islamabad High Court (IHC) boosted the courage of her father — who alongside the party founder Imran Khan is facing 10-year jail term in the cipher case.
She also said that both leaders want to see a strong and stable Pakistan despite facing difficulties.
Regarding the case against the former foreign minister, Shehrbano said that appeals against Qureshi’s sentences in the cipher case will be heard on April 16.
Most aid bound for war-ravaged Gaza arrives overland from neighbouring Egypt but Israel and UN agencies clash on how much actually makes it inside the Palestinian territory.
The volume of aid entering Gaza by road each day through the Rafah crossing from Egypt is insufficient, aid workers say, blaming rigorous Israeli inspections at least in part.
With no truce in sight to pause the Israel-Hamas war, here is a look at how aid currently reaches Gaza and what alternatives are being weighed to alleviate the crisis in the besieged Palestinian territory.
First stop: Egypt
Most Gaza-bound goods arrive by sea in the Egyptian ports of Port Said or El-Arish.
El-Arish is closer to Gaza but also smaller, and was quickly overwhelmed by the volume of shipments arriving, aid groups say.
Israeli authorities, who have blockaded Gaza since Hamas took sole control of the Palestinian territory in 2007, require that all aid entering Gaza be inspected by them.
The main inspection area for goods is Kerem Shalom in southern Israel, not far from the Rafah crossing.
Another inspection area exists in Nitzana, on the Israeli-Egyptian border about 40 kilometres (25 miles) to the southeast.
Long wait for trucks
Before reaching the inspection areas, many aid trucks wait for days at the Egyptian side of the Rafah checkpoint.
Once inspected, goods that are cleared to enter by Israel are unloaded from the mostly Egyptian trucks in the zone between Egypt and Gaza.
The supplies are then loaded onto separate vehicles, driven by Gazans working for aid groups, for distribution inside the Palestinian territory.
Cumbersome screenings are a major reason shortages are so glaring, aid workers say.
Israel blames a lack of sufficient capacity on the Palestinian side to distribute the aid once it gets in.
In recent days, Israel took issue with UN figures on the number of trucks entering Gaza, accusing UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA of counting only trucks it had processed, not those processed by Israel.
Heading north
For months, aid groups and foreign governments including top ally the United States have urged Israel to reopen border crossings into the north of Gaza, where the humanitarian crisis is most severe.
Israel announced that six World Food Programme (WFP) aid trucks entered the north directly from its territory in early March, in what it described as a “pilot project”.
The trial was not extended, however, and aid convoys bound for northern Gaza must travel the length of the territory negotiating battlegrounds, Israeli bombardments and mobs of desperate civilians.
In March, the WFP said one of its convoys had been blocked by Israeli forces inside Gaza before it could reach the north.
After turning back, the agency said the convoy was looted by a “crowd of desperate people”.
According to Israeli authorities, 28 trucks reached northern Gaza on Wednesday.
They were among 298 trucks that Israel said entered Gaza on Wednesday, still far below the number aid groups say is needed to sustain the territory’s 2.4 million people.
Under pressure from the international community, Israel announced on April 5 that it would open a new crossing directly into northern Gaza, without specifying its exact location or when it would open.
By air and by sea
In a bid to get round the logjam, several Arab and European governments, later joined by Washington, began carrying out aid airdrops over Gaza, particularly the north.
But the airdrops have proved controversial, with multiple deaths among civilians on the ground who were crushed by aid crates when parachutes failed to open, or drowned trying to reach others accidentally dropped in the sea.
There has also been an attempt to establish a maritime aid corridor from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus but it has largely fizzled out after seven aid workers were killed by Israeli fire on April 1 as they unloaded food from the second flotilla to make the crossing.
Even though the Cypriot government insists it has not given up on the aid corridor, no further crossings are currently planned after the US and Spanish charities behind the first two suspended their operations in the region.
UN agencies have in any case said repeatedly that road convoys are the only practical way of meeting Gaza’s needs.
Former President Dr Arif Alvi doesn’t think Khan was allowed to say Eid ki Namaz in jail, but even Alvi was confused. The former president first tweeted, alleging that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder Imran Khan was not being allowed to offer Eid namaz in Adiala Jail where he is currently incarcerated.
On April 9, Dr. Arif Alvi posted that Imran Khan’s ban on Eid prayers reminded him of the British rule. He wrote about a famous leader in India’s freedom struggle when he was sentenced by the occupying authorities.
He remarked, “He [Indian leader] remained in prison for four years and during that time Eid prayers were not even allowed. Because these oppressive rulers wanted to destroy the leadership of Muslim India, one of the various tactics to weaken their patriotism was to ban Friday and Eid prayers as well.”
However, when it was reported that Khan was allowed to offer Eid prayers, Alvi modified his statement.
Alvi wrote “Good sense has prevailed” in a post on X.
But again, in a twist, Dr Arif Alvi, a few hours later again, condemned authorities that Khan indeed was not allowed to offer Eid prayer quoting Meher Bano Qureshi, a PTI member and incarcerated Shah Mahmood Qureshi’s daughter. According to Meher Bano, both Khan and her father were not allowed to say Eid Namaz, as was confirmed to her by her father. He further stated that another party member Ejaz Chaudhary wasn’t allowed to do so either but “he led the prayer with Omar Cheema in their cell.”
He then edited his post with deploring fake news by saying, “in these times of falsehood and deceit no news source is trustworthy, except the crowdsourcing of PTI social media.”
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei again warned Israel Wednesday that it “will be punished” for a Damascus air strike that killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.
“The evil regime made a mistake in this regard. It must be punished and will be punished,” Khamenei said in a televised speech after Eid al-Adha prayers in Tehran.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz swiftly riposted with a Persian-language statement on social media site X.
“If Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will respond and attack Iran,” he said.
Khamenei said the April 1 strike, which levelled the five-storey Iranian consulate building in the Syrian capital, had run roughshod over international agreements providing for the inviolability of diplomatic premises.
“The consulate and embassy offices in any country are the territory of that country,” he said. “When they attacked our consulate, it means they attacked our territory.”
Khamenei has led Iranian officials in a succession of promises to avenge the strike, which was widely blamed on arch foe Israel.
One of his senior advisers, Yahya Rahim Safavi, warned on Sunday that Israeli embassies were “no longer safe”.
Israel said last week it was strengthening its defences and pausing leave for combat units following Iran’s retaliation threats.
Iran does not recognise Israel, and the two countries have fought a shadow war for years.
Iran charges that Israel was behind a wave of sabotage attacks and assassinations targeting its nuclear programme.
GAZA STRIP: Israeli strikes hit Gaza on Wednesday as Muslims marked the end of the holy fasting month of Ramzan and after US President Joe Biden labelled Israel’s approach to the war a “mistake”.
Palestinians gathered for morning prayers on the first day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday amid the ruins of Gaza, which has been devastated by more than six months of war since October 7.
Tens of thousands also flocked to Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound where one worshipper, nurse Rawan Abd, said: “It’s the saddest Eid ever… you could see the sadness on people’s faces.
“Usually we come to Al-Aqsa to celebrate, this year we came just to support each other,” the 32-year-old said at Islam’s third holiest site, which is also revered by Jews as the Temple Mount.
Israeli forces kept up combat operations and air strikes on Gaza a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed no let-up in the campaign to destroy Hamas and bring home the hostages.
Netanyahu insisted on that “no force in the world” would stop Israeli troops from entering Gaza’s far-southern city of Rafah which is packed with displaced Palestinians.
His threat came amid ongoing talks in Cairo involving US, Egyptian and Qatari mediators for a truce and hostage release deal.
Biden, voicing his growing frustration with hawkish Netanyahu, issued some of his sternest criticism yet of the war, which has brought mass civilian casualties and widespread suffering.
“I think what he’s doing is a mistake,” Biden told Spanish-language TV network Univision in an interview that aired Tuesday night after being recorded last week. “I don’t agree with his approach.”
He urged Netanyahu to “just call for a ceasefire, allow for the next six, eight weeks, total access to all food and medicine going into the country.”
‘Famine-like conditions’
The war broke out with October 7 against Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.
Palestinian also took about 250 hostages, 129 of whom remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 33,360 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
Another 14 people were killed – including small children – in a strike on a home in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, the health ministry said.
The army said Wednesday that “Israeli troops are continuing to operate in the central Gaza Strip and killed a number of terrorists over the past day”.
It added that aircraft had “struck dozens of terror targets in the Gaza Strip, including military sites, launchers, tunnel shafts and infrastructure.”
Israel has imposed a siege that has deprived Gaza’s people of most food, water, fuel, medicines, and other essential goods.
Humanitarian groups have accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza, where UN experts say half the population is facing “catastrophic” food insecurity.
Washington’s recent tougher line with Israel, its main ally in the region, has brought some results, according to the US Agency for International Development.
Recent days had seen a “sea change” in aid deliveries, said USAID administrator Samantha Power, with Israel reporting 468 trucks entering from Egypt on Tuesday.
However, Power stressed that Israel needs to do more, saying that “we have famine-like conditions in Gaza, and supermarkets filled with food within a few kilometres away” in southern Israel.
Washington has also resumed funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees after cutting it weeks ago after Israel claimed that some UNRWA staff took part in the October 7.
‘It will be punished’
Hamas has said it is studying the latest proposal for a truce. A framework being circulated would halt fighting for six weeks and see the exchange of about 40 hostages for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
However, Hamas has so far also publicly insisted on a full withdrawal of Israeli ground forces and a permanent ceasefire – demands Israel has rejected outright.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Tuesday that Israel had to “take some steps forward” while Hamas’s public statements had been “less than encouraging”.
The US State Department has however also warned Israel that “a full-scale military invasion of Rafah would have an enormously harmful effect” on civilians and “would ultimately hurt Israel’s security”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday he had no indication of an “imminent” assault on the city, where around 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering.
Blinken also said he doubted Israel would attack Rafah before a delegation is set to visit Washington next week.
Regional tensions have surged amid the Gaza war, and Israel was widely blamed for an April 1 strike on arch foe Iran’s consulate in Damascus that killed seven Revolutionary Guards.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Israel that “the evil regime made a mistake in this regard. It must be punished and will be punished.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz swiftly replied with a Persian-language post warning that “if Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will respond and attack Iran.”
Bollywood star Preity Zinta recently shared a precious memory from her early days in the industry on Instagram. The post featured a snapshot from her very first photoshoot at the age of 20.
In the caption, Zinta confessed to feeling clueless about posing for the camera back then. She wrote, “was going through some old stuff n found this photo! OMG!!! My first photo shoot ever… I was all of 20 & I thought I knew everything I needed to know about the world … except how to pose for a photo shoot.” Her candid reflection resonated with fans, who appreciated her honesty and humility.
Since her debut in the 1998 film ‘Dil Se,’ Preity Zinta has captivated audiences with her charm and talent. Alongside her successful acting career, she is also known for her philanthropy and advocacy work.
