CAIRO,
March 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Several human rights
groups slammed continued Israeli aggressions against the Palestinian
people and deadly incursions into Palestinian refugee camps, which
they see as a blatant violation of human rights.
Speaking
to IslamOnline, Bahy el-Deen Hassan, director of the Cairo Center
for Human Rights Studies (CCHRS), said that Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon is continuing with his massacre policy he used in the
Sabra and Shateela camps in Lebanon decades ago.
Hassan
was commenting at the photographs that were released by news
agencies Monday, March 11, and were taken by an amateur photographer
from his window in east Jerusalem in which Mahmoud Salah, a
23-year-old Palestinian, was shown being murdered by Israeli
soldiers.
The
pictures have caused outrage in the Arabic media.
“This
is a sample of the kinds of atrocious crimes that were committed in
the Sabra and Shateela camps, and comes at a time when the Israeli
occupation army is also targeting refugee camps as well,” Hassan
said.
He
added that it is now important to bring to the world’s attention
the resemblance between the daily massacres against the Palestinians
and the Holocaust.
“What
the Israeli occupation army is doing is not less horrific than what
was carried out in those camps, if not more appalling,” said
Hassan. He added that it is crucial to make sure that these actions
are not carried out by irresponsible, radical officers in the
Israeli army, but that they reflect Sharon’s policy in general.
“The
Israeli government will try to make this appear as an individual
incident, but in fact, I have heard Sharon say in a recent statement
on TV that they must liquidate the largest number of
Palestinians,” Hassan said. “This is clearly the army carrying
out their leader’s policy and the work of a bunch of radicals.”
The
CCHRS will be taking part in a Human rights meeting to be held March
18 at the United Nations, he said.
“We
will contribute two papers: the first on how the Palestinian crisis
is similar to what has happened in South Africa. The other is on the
double standards that is used by the International community in
dealing with the Palestinian issue,” said Hassan. He added that
there will also be a workshop held at the side of the conference
concerning the situation in the occupied territories and human
rights violations in the area.
 |
| An Israeli
soldier threatens a Palestinian taxi driver to leave Gilo
checkpoint area. |
Meanwhile,
the Nazi practice of inscribing numbers on the arms of Jews deported
to concentration camps during the Holocaust, is also being used by
the Israelis.
On
Monday, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat accused Israeli soldiers
of treating Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews, in their
round-ups of hundreds of men in the West Bank, Agence France-Presse
(AFP).
In
an interview broadcast on Abu Dhabi television Monday, Arafat said
Israeli soldiers had "written numbers on the arms of
Palestinians they arrested in the Tulkarem refugee camp," in
the north of the West Bank and which the troops occupied for 72
hours last week.
"Did
you see what the Israeli soldiers put on the arms of the Palestinian
prisoners in Tulkarem? They tattooed numbers on their arms. Is it
the same thing the Nazi did against Jews? Is this not a new Nazi
racism?" said Arafat.
Sources from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
confirmed that Israeli troops tattooed numbers on the arms of
several Palestinians arrested in the past few days in an Israeli
detention camp near Tulkarem.
Since the end of February, the Israelis have adopted a new strategy
of raiding Palestinian refugee camps, towns and villages and
ordering male residents to gather in public places where they are
blindfolded and handcuffed before interrogation.
An estimated 2000 Palestinians have been rounded up in this way, but
an Israeli military spokesman claimed Tuesday, March 12, that most
of them were released. “Only a few dozen were sill being held for
further verification," alleged Olivier Rafowicz.
On
Tuesday, an Israeli human rights group demonstrated in Tel Aviv
protesting the rising number of Israeli occupation army attacks on
ambulances in the Palestinian territories, and seeking a supreme
court ban on such inhuman actions.
Around
40 protestors carrying placards reading "protect medical
autonomy" and "they also shoot ambulances" gathered
just a few blocks from Israel's defense ministry in Tel Aviv.
The
activists of Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) were protesting at
the rising number of ambulances hit by Israeli army bullets and
shells over the past couple of months. Nearby stood a
Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance which came under fire during an
Israeli army incursion into Tulkarem refugee camp in the West Bank,
the front battered and with at least eight bullet holes in the
windscreen.
Ibrahim al-Helou, 39, a doctor with the Red Crescent, and Kamal
Salem, 35, an employee of the U.N. relief agency for Palestinian
refugees UNRWA, were killed as the ambulance was hit March 7.
Three days earlier, another Palestinian doctor, head of the Red
Crescent in the Jenin area of the West Bank, was killed when an
Israeli tank opened fire on his ambulance, hospital officials said.
Salah Haj Yahya, director of fieldwork for PHR said that since the
beginning of the Palestinian Intifada, more than 80 ambulances had
been hit, and eight doctors and medical professionals killed by
Israeli soldiers.
Yahya, who witnessed the Tulkarem attack, said the organization
would be presenting the facts of the attack in Tulkarem to Israel's
supreme court on Thursday, March 14, to lobby for a ban on any
attacks on ambulances.
Amnesty
International has issued a statement calling on the international
community to intervene to save lives that are being lost in the
occupied territories.
"The
international community has made many statements and sent many
delegates, but these efforts have failed to prevent an escalating
human rights crisis," said Amnesty International.
"AI has repeatedly called on the Israeli Government to halt
unlawful killings.. International monitors with a strong human
rights component can help to stop unlawful killings, and the human
suffering caused by the bombings, the siege and demolition of homes
in Gaza and the West Bank."
The Gaza Strip and the West Bank, occupied by Israel in 1967, are
governed by the rules of human rights and humanitarian law. Those
living under occupation are protected by the rules of the Fourth
Geneva Convention which describe as "grave breaches" acts
such as willful killing, willfully causing great suffering or
serious injury to body or health, and extensive destruction and
appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity, the
statement added.
"Yet, grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and serious
violations of human rights standards are daily currency in the
Occupied [Palestinian] Territories," Amnesty International
emphasized.
The number of Palestinians killed since the breakout of the current
Intifada in September 2000 has now reached more than 1000. The great
majority of those killed, who include more than 200 children, were
killed unlawfully when no lives were in danger. More than 600 houses
have been demolished.
In
an act of collective punishment, villages and towns in the West Bank
are consistently sealed off by barriers manned by Israeli soldiers
or made of earth, concrete blocks or trenches.
The Commission of Inquiry established by the U.N. Commission on
Human Rights called in March 2001 for an effective international
human rights monitoring presence to be "established immediately
and constituted in such a manner as to reflect a sense of urgency
about protecting the human rights of the Palestinian people".
A year on, this urgent call remains unheeded. Respect for human
rights and humanitarian law is the only viable path towards lasting
peace and security for both Palestinians and Israelis.
Human Rights Watch also issued a statement calling on the Israeli
government to instruct soldiers to immediately refrain from
attacking medical personnel in the West Bank and Gaza.
"Attacking
humanitarian personnel and their vehicles is strictly prohibited
under international humanitarian law," said Joe Stork,
Washington Director of the Middle East and North Africa division of
Human Rights Watch. "Israel should take immediate steps to
prevent any recurrence of these attacks."
Human
Rights Watch said that deliberate attacks on medical personnel,
vehicles and infrastructure constitute a grave breach of the Geneva
Conventions.
On
March 4, the head of the Palestinian Red Crescent Service (PRCS)
emergency medical service in Jenin, Dr. Khalil Sulieman, was killed
and another five PRCS staff were injured when Israeli occupation
troops shot at their ambulances in Jenin refugee camp.
Human
Rights Watch expressed further concern that ambulances had
reportedly been prevented from gaining access to injured in Tulkarem
refugee camp.
"Purposely
hindering medical access also constitutes a serious violation of
international humanitarian law," said Stork.
With
additonal reporting by Lamya Tawfeek, IOL Cairo correspondent
