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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday condemned Israeli airstrikes targeting Hamas officials in Doha and reaffirmed Islamabad’s support to Qatar and Palestine in the wake of Israeli “aggression.”

Qatar, which has been a key mediator in efforts to broker a truce in Gaza, said Israeli strikes targeted homes of several members of Hamas’s political bureau residing in the Gulf country, where the militant group’s senior leadership is based.

A Hamas official in Gaza told AFP the group’s negotiators had been “targeted” in Doha, though it was not immediately clear whether the attack had caused any casualties.

In a post on X, PM Sharif said they condemned the “unlawful and heinous” bombing in Doha that targeted a residential area and endangered the lives of innocent civilians.

“This act of aggression by Israel is totally unjustified, a brazen violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar and constitutes a most dangerous provocation that could imperil regional peace and stability,” he said.

Tuesday’s strikes, Israel’s first attack on the Gulf state, come less than two weeks after Israel’s armed forces chief vowed to target the group’s leaders based abroad.

“Most of Hamas’s leadership is abroad, and we will reach them as well,” Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said on August 31.

Qatar, along with the United States and Egypt, has led multiple attempts to end Israel’s war against Hamas, which was killed more than 64,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7, 2023. Despite sealing two temporary truces, the successive rounds of talks have failed to bring a lasting end to the war.

Qatar condemned Tuesday’s attack, saying it had targeted residential buildings housing Hamas political bureau members.

“The State of Qatar strongly condemns the cowardly Israeli attack that targeted residential buildings housing several members of the political bureau of Hamas in the Qatari capital, Doha,” foreign ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari said in a post on X.

In his message, the Pakistan prime minister extended sympathies and solidarity to the Qatari emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and the people of his country.

“Pakistan stands firmly with the State of Qatar as well as with the people of Palestine against Israel’s aggression,” he added.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s southern Sindh province is bracing for potentially catastrophic flooding as swollen rivers from the north rush downstream, the provincial government said on Tuesday, urging vulnerable riverbank communities to move to relief camps as authorities reinforced embankments along the Indus, the country’s longest river.

The alert comes after weeks of record monsoon rains across Punjab, Pakistan’s agricultural heartland, where millions of people have already been displaced by torrents from the Chenab, Ravi and Sutlej rivers. Floodwaters from those rivers are now merging into the Indus in Sindh, threatening farmland, villages, and major towns. Releases from Indian dams on the Sutlej have added to the flows, with authorities in New Delhi easing pressure on swollen reservoirs during heavy rains.

Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has warned of a new spell of rain in Sindh and neighboring Balochistan, with risks of severe urban flooding in Karachi, Hyderabad, and Sukkur as well as flash floods in mountain catchments.

Officials say the Sindh government has made preparations for a “super flood” and is reinforcing weak embankments after inspecting defenses at barrages along the Indus.

Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Sindh’s ruling Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chairman and a former foreign minister, on Tuesday visited the Guddu and Sukkur barrages, two critical flood-control structures on the Indus, where officials briefed him on preparations.

“In every eventuality, difficulties are there for people, especially for poor people who live close to river, whether it is medium flood, high flood, very high flood or super flood,” he told reporters.

When asked about the likelihood of unprecedented flooding, he said: “I believe we should take it seriously. A flood is a flood.”

The Sindh government said it had set up 528 relief camps and 159 medical camps across flood-hit districts since late August, housing over 143,000 displaced people. More than 390,000 livestock, vital to rural livelihoods, have also been evacuated, with veterinary services established in high-risk areas.

Bhutto-Zardari warned the country was facing a food security crisis after $1.5 billion in agricultural losses, mostly in Punjab.

“I and the Pakistan Peoples Party are of the opinion that we should declare an agricultural emergency nationwide, and whatever can be done by the federal and provincial governments, we must help our Pakistani farmers,” he said.

Nationwide, the NDMA has said 928 people have died in floods, rains and related incidents since June 26.

President Asif Ali Zardari has directed urgent measures to safeguard food supplies, urging officials to protect farmers and livestock, strengthen storage and distribution systems, and adopt climate-resilient practices to withstand future shocks.

PUNJAB

Punjab province, Pakistan’s most populous and its main farming belt, has borne the brunt of the disaster of the latest monsoon spell that began late last month.

According to Irfan Ali Kathia, director general of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), 66 people have been killed, 21 million displaced or evacuated to safer areas, and around 1.95 million acres of farmland inundated.

He said the province had seen “the largest water torrents in its history,” with the biggest rescue operation ever mounted in Punjab. The army joined civilian agencies to relocate people from low-lying villages along the Ravi, Chenab and Sutlej rivers.

Kathia detailed current water flows: 253,000 cubic feet per second (cusecs) at Ganda Singh Wala on the Sutlej near the Indian border, 34,000 cusecs in the Ravi, 300,000 cusecs at Trimmu, 300,000 cusecs at Punjnad, and over 400,000 cusecs at Guddu in Sindh.

Relief Commissioner Nabeel Javed said over 4.2 million people across 4,300 villages had been affected and more than 1.57 million animals evacuated.

BALOCHISTAN

The NDMA has also issued warnings for Balochistan, a sparsely populated but mountainous southwestern province where heavy rains can trigger flash floods in seasonal rivers known as nullahs. Authorities forecast downpours in Hub, Lasbela, Khuzdar, Awaran, Kech, Gwadar, Ormara and Hingol Valley, raising fears of dangerous torrents that could damage roads, crops and weak housing.

Pakistan has ranked among the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, experiencing increasingly erratic monsoons, untimely rains, heat waves and droughts in recent years. Monsoon rains bring up to 80 percent of the nation’s annual precipitation and are vital for replenishing rivers and agriculture, but their growing intensity has turned them into a recurring disaster.