PAKISTAN PERSPECTIVE

Islamabad, May 28, 2026. Israel's announcement of the elimination of Mohammed Odeh, the new chief of Hamas' armed wing in Gaza, sparked a strong reaction in Pakistani media, framing the event not as a military victory but as a new episode in an endless offensive against Gaza's population. Dawn and The Express Tribune, the country's leading newspapers, reported the facts with sobriety that contrasts with the triumphant tone adopted by Israeli authorities.

According to Dawn's information, Israel announced on Wednesday that it had killed Mohammed Odeh during a strike the previous day. What caught the attention of Pakistani editors is the speed with which this leader succeeded his predecessor: the latter had been killed in a similar attack earlier in the same month of May 2026. In the space of a few weeks, Israel would have eliminated two successive leaders of the same military structure. For editorialists close to Islamabad's official positions, this pace illustrates less Israeli operational efficiency than a permanent logic of escalation that no longer distinguishes between military targets and the destruction of Gaza's social fabric.

The Express Tribune's coverage adds a human dimension that military communiqués tend to erase. In an article titled 'No feast, no joy: Gazans mark a somber Eid', the newspaper describes a population that crosses the most important Islamic holiday in total deprivation – without food, without family reunions, under the sound of bombings. This contrast between the martial announcement of an elimination and the daily reality of civilians deprived of everything resonates deeply in a country where solidarity with the Palestinian cause is a constitutive part of national identity and foreign policy.

Pakistan, a founding member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, has historically refused to recognize the State of Israel. Islamabad's government has considered for decades that the Palestinian question is a central cause of the umma – the global Muslim community. In this framework of reading, the targeted elimination of Hamas leaders is not perceived as a legitimate act of defense but as the deepening of a decapitation strategy that perpetuates the cycle of violence without opening up a political perspective.

Pakistani media do not question the fact that Mohammed Odeh led an armed organization. However, their editorial treatment systematically places the Israeli announcement in the broader context of an offensive that has devastated Gaza, highlighting that the death of a military leader does not end the suffering of civilians who, themselves, could not celebrate Eid this year.