World Bank approves $102 million for Pakistan’s microfinance sector to bolster climate resilience

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top diplomat at the United Nations on Tuesday criticized Israel’s “extremist leaders” for continuing the war in Gaza for their own political survival, as fresh Israeli airstrikes killed about 400 people, threatening to unravel a fragile ceasefire.
Addressing a UN Security Council briefing on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, Ambassador Munir Akram accused Israel of systematically eroding the ceasefire agreement reached in January and called for an end to its “slaughter” of the Palestinian people.
The ceasefire agreement was reached on January 15 following more than a year of Israeli airstrikes that flattened much of Gaza’s infrastructure, including schools, hospitals and residential neighborhoods.
In the weeks that followed, Hamas, which governs the enclave, returned several batches of Israeli hostages taken at the start of the war, and the international community began to discuss reconstruction plans for the war-ravaged territory.
“The agreement of 15th January for a ceasefire, for a three-phase ceasefire, offered a sliver of hope for the Palestinian people, for the Israeli people, and for the world community,” Akram said. “The Arab and OIC [Organization of Islamic Cooperation] reconstruction and peace plan was under consideration in capitals. It offered a road to peace.”
“But obviously, this glimmer of hope and hope for peace was not to the liking of the extremist leaders who rule Israel today,” he continued. “They see their survival in the continuation of the war.”
Akram said Israeli was guilty of violating every article of international law, urging the world community to respond with justice or risk the world order’s regression “into the barbarism from which the Charter of the United Nations was supposed to rescue us.”
Akram highlighted Israel’s deliberate efforts to dismantle the ceasefire agreement, starting with the imposition of a humanitarian blockade of Gaza. This, he said, was followed by restrictions on Palestinian Muslims from accessing Al-Aqsa Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan.
“These are all tactics of the oppressor,” he maintained. “And now, they have escalated to blatantly violate the ceasefire and resume attacks against the helpless Palestinians in Gaza who were just returning to rebuild their homes.”
The Pakistani envoy called for the resumption of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian enclave and the need for a revival of negotiations leading to a two-state solution, with an independent Palestinian state along pre-1967 borders and East Jerusalem as its capital.
“The upcoming June conference, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, is an important opportunity for the peaceful resolution of the Palestinian question and the implementation of the two-state solution,” he said, adding that “to realize the possibility of peace, Israel’s aggression, its attacks and its slaughter of the Palestinians must stop.”

ISLAMABAD: The local administration has imposed a curfew in several areas of northwestern Pakistani districts of North Waziristan, South Waziristan and Tank on Wednesday, the respective district authorities said, amid a rise in militant attacks in the South Asian country.

Pakistan has witnessed a sharp increase in militant attacks in its northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and southwestern Balochistan provinces, with an unprecedented train hijacking killing 31 people, including security men, in Balochistan’s Bolan range last week, followed by a suicide attack in Nushki that killed five people on Sunday. In KP, the Pakistani Taliban, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and other militant groups have mounted their attacks in recent months, frequently targeting security forces convoys and check-posts, besides targeted killings and kidnappings of law enforcers and government officials.

The precarious security situation prompted top Pakistani civilian and military leaders to huddle together at the Parliament House on Tuesday to carve out a strategy to deal with the renewed wave of militancy. Senior military and intelligence officials briefed participants at Tuesday’s meeting, following which Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called on the country’s political leadership to unite in its resolve to combat militants with “the full force of the state.”

The office of the deputy commission in KP’s Tank district announced that a curfew will remain in place from 6am till 6pm from Kaur Fort to Manzi-Khirgi to Jandola areas on Wednesday, while the Dabarra market will also remain closed during this period, citing “heightened threat” to the movement of law enforcement agencies.

“All concerned are requested to cooperate with security forces and avoid traveling during curfew hours,” the Tank deputy commissioner’s office said in a notification.

The development comes weeks after a paramilitary troop and 12 militants were killed in a gunbattle in the district after the militants carried out a suicide attack at the Frontier Constabulary (FC) headquarters, a police official with direct knowledge of the development said.

The attack took place in the Jandola tehsil.

In South Waziristan, a curfew will remain imposed along the Aziz Abad Chowk-Sarwakal-Jandola, Spin Jumat-Asman Manza-Ladha-Makin, and Bibi Raghzai-Kotkai-Jandola roads, according to the local administration.

Authorities in North Waziristan asked people to abide by the curfew from 6am till 6pm in Nawaz Kot Bridge to Dunkan, Tehsil Razmak, and Dunkan to Malogai Bridge in Tehsil Dossali in the wake of “current spell of insurgency, terrorism and targeting of security forces by the militants.”

Both North and South Waziristan districts, which border Afghanistan, had been a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban before successive military operations drove the militants out of the region more than a decade ago.

Pakistan ranks as the second-most affected country by terrorism, according to The Global Terrorism Index 2025. Militancy-related deaths surged by 45%, rising from 748 in 2023 to 1,081 in 2024, marking one of the steepest global increases.

Militant attacks in Pakistan more than doubled from 517 in 2023 to 1,099 in 2024. Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa remained the hardest-hit provinces, accounting for over 96 percent of attacks and fatalities.

Pakistani officials have accused the neighboring India and Afghanistan of fanning militancy in KP and Balochistan provinces. New Delhi and Kabul both deny the accusation.