United Nations, New York For the past two days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent video message in which he referred to Pakistan and Osama bin Laden has dominated Pakistani social media. BBC Urdu reports that the controversy escalated further when Pakistani and Israeli delegates confronted each other directly during a United Nations Security Council meeting convened in response to Israel’s attack on Qatar.
The emergency session was called after Israeli forces struck targets in Doha, claiming to have eliminated senior Hamas leaders “directly responsible” for the October 7 attacks. Hamas stated that members of its negotiating delegation in Doha were targeted but escaped, while six others, including a Qatari security official, were killed.
In a joint statement after the meeting, the Security Council condemned the attack on Doha but did not name Israel. However, representatives from Pakistan, Qatar, Egypt and others strongly denounced the strike and raised concerns over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
When it was Pakistan’s turn to speak, Permanent Representative Asim Iftikhar Ahmed condemned the Doha attack and criticized Netanyahu’s remarks.
“Israel made remarks contrary to the facts by linking an unrelated incident to Pakistan, intended to violate international law and justify its illegal actions,” he said, adding that Pakistan’s sacrifices in the war on terror were well-documented and had led to the elimination of al-Qaeda.
Ahmed rejected any “false comparison” between Pakistan and states accused of harboring extremists, calling Israel “an irresponsible state guilty of the worst state terrorism in Gaza and the Palestinian territories for decades.”
The Israeli representative immediately responded, asserting that “the fact that Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan cannot be changed” and accusing Pakistan of applying “double standards” one for itself and another for Israel.
“You cannot change the fact that 9/11 happened. You cannot change the fact that Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan and was killed on your soil,” the Israeli envoy said, urging Pakistan to reflect on its criticisms of Israel.
The exchange stemmed from Netanyahu’s September 10 video message marking the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. In it, he likened Israel’s strike on Qatar to the U.S. operation that killed bin Laden in Abbottabad in 2011, warning countries including Qatar not to shelter extremists or face similar action.
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry swiftly rejected Netanyahu’s comparison, calling it “a desperate attempt to justify a crime condemned by the entire world” and stressing that Hamas’ Doha office operated within mediation frameworks requested by both the United States and Israel.
The Security Council meeting ended without consensus on naming Israel in its statement, but the verbal clash between Pakistan and Israel underscored deepening diplomatic rifts and ensured that Netanyahu’s mention of Pakistan, as reported by BBC Urdu, will continue to reverberate in international forums.