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Israeli
Forces Storm, Close Palestinian University Offices
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“They
were changing locks, taking computer hardware, files and file
cabinets without even looking inside”
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With
additional reporting by Hazem Abu Shanab, IOL Palestine correspondent
OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, July 9 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – In a flagrant
violation of international law and agreements between Palestinian and
Israeli parties, armed Israeli forces stormed Tuesday, July 9, into
the administrative offices of the Palestinian Al-Quds University in
occupied east Jerusalem, closing the building and accusing officials
there of working for Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s
Palestinian Authority.
Witnesses
said the Israeli forces sealed the offices of Al-Quds University
President Sari Nusseibeh, the senior Palestinian representative in
Jerusalem and internationally one of the most recognized voices of
moderation among Palestinians, the U.S. daily newspaper, the
Washington Post reported. Nusseibeh has previously angered
Palestinians by condemning resistance bombings.
“It
was really scary,” said Dimitri Diliani, director of the university
president’s office. “You’re sitting in your office doing
paperwork and someone with an M-16 asks you to drop everything and
show your ID.”
Israeli
Public Security Minister Uzi Landau, who ordered the shutdown, told
Israel Radio that the university represents the “long arm of the
Palestinian Authority, operating against the law.”
This
comes at the same time of a meeting, Tuesday, July 9, between Israeli
Foreign Minister Shimon Peres with chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb
Erakat, and the new Palestinian Interior Minister, new General Abdel
Razaq Al-Yahiya.
Police
officers drove off with documents and computers seized from the
offices and changed the locks, said an Agence France-Presse (AFP)
correspondent at the scene.
The
closure of administrative offices of the 6,000-student Al-Quds
University was the latest in a series of Israeli shutdowns of
Palestinian institutions and organizations operating in the mainly
Palestinian eastern part of Jerusalem, which Israel occupied during
the 1967 Middle East war, along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and
Golan Heights.
Later
Tuesday, a group of around 100 Israeli peace activists staged a sit-in
outside the university offices to protest that the closure also
targeted Nusseibeh, who in Israel is considered a moderate Palestinian
leader, AFP reported.
Nusseibeh’s
lawyer, Jawada Boulos, said he would appeal in court against the
closure of the university offices.
The
closure amounted to “a new violation by Israel of the
Israeli-Palestinian accords authorizing the functioning of Palestinian
institutions,” Palestinian interior minister Yasser Abed Rabbo
protested.
In
a statement released by the administration, the university refused
Israel’s brutal practices and asked for financial support to reopen
the university.
The
most prominent institution previously closed by Israeli authorities
was Orient House, the Palestinian political nerve center in Jerusalem
that was shut August 2001, eliciting a rebuke from the U.S.
The
latest closure action was criticized vociferously by Palestinian
organizations, peace groups and dovish Israeli officials who view
Nusseibeh and the university he leads as moderating influences in
Palestinian society, the Post reported.
“The
closing of Nusseibeh’s offices exposes the true nature of this
government - systematic destruction of any possible political solution
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Moria Shlomot, director of the
Israeli anti-war group Peace Now, said in a statement.
Nusseibeh,
who was recently criticized by some Palestinians for being a signatory
to a newspaper advertisement denouncing “suicide” bombings by
Palestinians, was at a conference in Greece when, at 9 a.m., about 60
police surrounded the two-story office building that houses the
administration of the multi-campus university, Diliani said.
“They
sealed off the area around the university and declared it a military
zone, with nobody allowed in or out,” said Diliani, who has worked
for the university four years. “They were changing locks, taking
computer hardware, files and file cabinets without even looking
inside.”
Diliani
said a moving company truck parked outside the building was used to
carry off files and other materials from the offices. He said about 30
employees in various offices were ordered to leave the building, and
he and at least one other official were interrogated by police.
“They
opened my briefcase and confiscated everything,” Diliani said,
“even a picture of my girlfriend.”
Diliani
said no classrooms were involved in the shutdown. He said most
students are attending extended sessions to finish the school year
because of the disruptions of Israeli military operations in the West
Bank city of Ramallah and other campus locations, adding that classes
will continue.
Diliani
denied that the officers were involved in work for the Palestinian
Authority. “This is a purely educational institution. It does
nothing but education,” he said.
Al-Quds
University is the only Arab university in the city of Jerusalem
providing education and community services to towns, villages and
refugee camps located in the region.
Its
ten faculties (Arts, Science and Technology, Medicine, Dentistry,
Public Health, Law, Quran and Islamic Studies, Health Professions,
Engineering and Jurisprudence) accommodate over 6 thousand students
from the Districts of Jenin, Tulkarem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Nablus,
Ramallah and Jericho.
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