Claim: Foreign Minister of Pakistan Ishaq Dar said that Pakistan was ready to intervene and take physical action in Gaza, in an interview with Al Jazeera.
Fact: A clip from Dar’s interview has been shared with misleading captions. The Foreign Minister spoke about the need for physical action in Gaza if belligerent states like Israel do not follow the UN’s resolutions, and suggested the possible formation of a combined Arab security force for peaceful purposes. He emphasised that such a security force should be for purposes of deterrence, and did not say that the Pakistan Army would intervene in Gaza militarily.
On 16 September, a Facebook user posted a video (archive) clip from Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar’s interview with Al Jazeera during his recent visit to Doha.
The text embedded in the clip reads [translated from Urdu]:
“Gaza needs physical action, and Pakistan is ready. We have a strong army, air force and navy.”
“If anyone challenges us, then we can defeat them, Alhamdulillah”.
The text implies that the foreign minister said Pakistan is ready to take military action in Gaza, during his interview with AJ. In the clip itself, Dar can be heard saying: “It is only a deterrence. So, but Pakistan is having a very large, known, very. The effective army, very effective Air Force, very effective Navy. I mean many, many times bigger than Pakistan in terms of conventional weapons, because both are new. Nuclear is equal, no matter how small a country or how big a country you are. So we proved that even conventionally we can, we can beat if you know we are challenged.”
Dar’s words almost fade due to the loud music that plays over the clip.
Some X posts also speculated that Dar said Pakistan was ready to intervene militarily inside Gaza. “Pakistan wants to intervene militarily in Gaza against Israel. I think it is a noble idea. On behalf of the 56 Islamic countries, they should go ahead and try it,” reads one such post (archive).
These posts have shared a clip from the interview of Dar with Al Jazeera aired on 15 September.
Qatar holds emergency summit after Israeli missile attack
An emergency summit bringing together Arab and Muslim nations was held in Qatar on 15 September to condemn Israel’s missile attack on Hamas leaders within its territory.
Nearly 60 countries attended the summit to deliver a united message to what they deemed Israel’s flagrant violation of Qatar’s sovereignty and an escalation threatening regional stability.
Israel said that their attack in Doha on 9 September was meant to target Hamas leaders involved in talks to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
But Israel has faced growing condemnation internationally for its ground invasion and for committing a genocide in Gaza, which has killed approximately 65,000 Palestinian people, the majority of whom are women and children.
Furthermore, the missile strike on Qatar was one of the many attacks that Israel conducted in six countries early in September, in violation of their sovereignty, including Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Qatar, and Yemen.
Doha condemned the attack within its territory, and several countries deplored Israel’s flagrant violation of Qatar’s sovereignty.
An excerpt of the resolution from the summit, seen by Reuters, stated that “the brutal Israeli attack on Qatar and the continuation of Israel’s hostile acts including genocide, ethnic cleansing, starvation, siege, and colonizing activities and expansion policies threatens prospects of peace and coexistence in the region.”
Pakistan also attended the summit and condemned Israel’s attack on Qatar. “In my statement, I strongly condemned Israel’s aggression in the Middle East, reaffirmed Pakistan’s unwavering solidarity with Qatar, and reiterated our firm commitment to peace in the region, including our resolute support for a just and lasting two-state solution,” said Shehbaz Sharif, the Prime Minister of Pakistan.
Fact or Fiction?
Soch Fact Check analysed the full interview of Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar with Al Jazeera from 15 September 2025, and found that the posts online have mischaracterised Dar’s statement.
The interview mainly focused on the approach that Muslim countries, especially Pakistan, which is a nuclear-armed nation, would take after Israel violated Qatar’s sovereignty by launching a missile strike within its territory.
Throughout the clip, Dar discusses a ceasefire and achieving peace through dialogue in Gaza. Regarding taking concrete steps to prevent belligerent states like Israel and India, he does mention “physical action”, but within the framework of the United Nations. Instead, he emphasises that the bloc of Arab countries attending the summit should form a united security force that serves as a deterrent in the region.
The discussion relevant to this fact-check begins at the 10:40 mark when the news anchor, Osama bin Javaid, asks:
“Your defence minister, Khawaja Asif, issued a strong warning. He said that no country should think that the Gaza crisis will remain limited. You echoed that, if Gaza is targeted today, then tomorrow, it could be another nation’s turn. Qatar being the latest. Could Pakistan be next?”
To this, Dar responds: “Well, India tried, Israel did, according to our information, gave full support, and the world saw the claims all got exposed. So we are ready.”
But he stresses: “We believe in peace.”
Dar says that the mechanism within the UN has to be reformed since countries like Israel and India are not acting upon its resolutions. At this point he says:
“So you see, these examples are not very, very good, because these would lead to a lot of frustration and encouragement. So the mechanism has to be evolved within the UN Security Council that if its resolutions are not acted upon and not implemented, then what practical measures could the UN Security Council and its members can take to control the situation, and that might require physical actions, physical interventions.”
He mentions “physical actions” and “physical interventions” as a last resort and did not urge for immediate military or physical action in Gaza, as implied by the claim.
The host, Osama bin Javaid, then retorts that the approach of having dialogue and negotiations suggested by Dar is clearly not working in the case of Gaza.
Javaid asks: “Whatever is happening and has been happening for the last 22 months, you talk about physical action…Because we’ve heard some rumours about a united force, an intervening body away from the United Nations structure, somebody, something from this, from this region. Are you talking about a force which could intervene in Gaza from this region?”
In response to this, Dar says that:
- There could be a mechanism for imposing sanctions on countries that fail to comply with UN rules.
- The possibility of a combined security force, not for aggression, but for peaceful purposes. “So I think it’s the recent Arab interactions and the Arab League, I think they’ve already talked on these lines, some sort of combined security force type. Why not? What’s wrong in that? They should, and according to their own capacity, own strength, they should create some mechanism, not for aggression purpose, but for peaceful purpose, for stopping the aggressor, for stopping the occupier, for stopping you know, somebody who just doesn’t listen,” said Dar.
“And where does a nuclear-powered Pakistan stand with that?” asks Javaid.
“Nuclear-powered Pakistan obviously would stand as a member of the ummah, and will discharge its duty,” Dar responds.
The host prods the foreign minister, asking him to explain what this means. Here, Dar talks about deterrence, and this is the response that has been shared out of context:
“We ourselves believe that this is a deterrence, which we never intend to use. We never used it. We know we have no, no, no intention to using it. It is only a deterrence. So… But Pakistan has a very large, known, and very effective army. Very effective Air Force, very effective Navy. I mean many, many times bigger than Pakistan in terms of conventional weapons, because both are new. Nuclear is equal, no matter how small a country or how big a country you are. So we proved that even conventionally we can, we can beat if you know we are challenged.”
Nowhere in the above exchange does he mention that Pakistan was ready to intervene in Gaza militarily. Instead, posts have shared different parts of the interview with misleading captions.
Soch Fact Check therefore concludes that the claim is misleading.
Virality
The Facebook post was liked 10,600 times and shared 1,700 times.
The claim also appeared on Facebook here, here, here, and here.
On Instagram here.
The claim also appeared on X here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
Conclusion: Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar did not say Pakistan was ready to take “physical action” inside Gaza. A clip from his recent interview with Al Jazeera has been shared with misleading captions.
Background image in cover photo: Al Jazeera
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