International campaign to prosecute Israeli officials for their war crimes against the Palestinian people

PPC to launch international campaign to prosecute Israeli officials

[ 30/10/2007 - 11:47 AM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)--

The Palestinian prisoners' club has announced that it intends to launch an international campaign aimed at prosecuting Israeli officials accused of committing "war crimes" against Palestinian prisoners.

This announcement came after the club held an emergency meeting to discuss the successive developments in Israeli prisons, especially the last Israeli aggressions against Palestinian prisoners in the Negev prison which resulted in the death of prisoner Mohamed Al-Ashqar and injury of 30 others.

The club announced that it is ready to receive any information confirmed with a sworn testimony on assaults against Palestinian prisoners as well as testimonies and letters from the assaulted prisoners themselves about any assaults attached with dates, names of jails and prison officials in order to prepare prosecution files meeting legal requirements.

The club added that law-oriented organizations and international jurists will assume responsibility for filing lawsuits with special courts in the world.

In another context, Hamas prisoners in the Israeli Shatta prison stated in a press release that the international community is obliged to protect the Palestinian people in face of Israeli continued assaults against them because they are defenseless people living under military occupation.

The prisoners called on the Arab and Islamic world to play an effective role and put pressure during international and regional conferences on the world policy makers to balance their positions and bridle the Israeli aggressions against the Palestinian people.

In another context, lawyer of the prisoners studies and research center Ahmed Shawahna confirmed that the health conditions of Palestinian prisoners in the Ramla prison hospital are deteriorating where the hospital lacks the minimum of medical supplies and care, pointing out that most of the Palestinian prisoners in the hospital have movement disabilities and find no one to help them.

Shawahna appealed in a statement received by the PIC to international medical and human rights organizations, especially Médecins Sans Frontières organization to work on saving the Palestinian prisoners in the Ramla hospital and getting them released because they already spent long periods in Israeli prisons.

Furthermore, the Ahrar center for prisoners studies revealed that the representatives of the Negev prisoners agreed with the director of Israeli prisons' authority that prison officers sent to search cells will not carry firearms and night searches will stop.

The Negev prisoners also extracted many of their rights including the prevention of bodily search against their families during visits and allowing academic studies inside the prison.

The Ahrar center called on all human rights organizations to visit the Negev prison in order to document the Israeli violations and assaults that happened in the prison and to go to the Soroka hospital to report on the serious health status of Palestinian prisoners there.

Israeli blockade and military escalations on Gaza are real war crimes, says Abu Zuhri

[ 30/10/2007 - 05:25 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, described the continuation of the Israeli economic siege and military escalation against the Gaza Strip as "real war crimes" and explicit violation of human rights, calling on the international community to assume its humanitarian responsibilities towards the Palestinian people.

Abu Zuhri revealed in a press interview that the caretaker government and Hamas leaders have conducted lately various contacts with Arab and Western countries, pointing out that all Arab countries and many western sides are greatly sympathetic with the Gaza people who are living in tragic conditions resulting from the escalating Israeli siege.

The Hamas spokesman underlined that the reality have proven that the option of boycotting Hamas is useless and not going to eliminate Hamas from the Palestinian political scene, expressing hope that the Arab and western sympathy would turn into concrete actions to help the Gaza people.

For his part, Taher Annono, the spokesman for the caretaker government, described the Israeli resolution to slash the fuel allocations to the Gaza Strip as part of "organized terrorism" against the Palestinian people in order to suppress them into accepting the Zio-American dictates as a prelude to the autumn conference.

In a statement to the Quds press, Annono called on the international community to assume its responsibility in this regard and to provide one and a half million Palestinian citizens in Gaza with the basic components of life, pointing out that they are living in a big prison.

He also urged the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to take a historic step and break the siege imposed on the Palestinian people through turning the Rafah border crossing to a Palestinian- Egyptian crossing.

In another context, Shlomi Aldad, an Israeli reporter working for the Israeli 10th TV channel, pointed out that the Israeli decision to slash the fuel supplies to Gaza made the Gaza people direct their outrage at the PA chief and the Israeli government rather than towards Hamas government.

"The Gaza people are looking to Ismail Haniya, Dr. Mahmoud Al-Zahhar and the other Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip as heroes confronting the whole world for the benefit of the Palestinian people," the Israeli reporter said.

He added that whoever believes that Hamas may lose its control over the Gaza Strip soon and that Abbas would return to control the Gaza Strip, was not reading the map of the region well.

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