OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, August 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies)- An Israeli
appeals court was to rule Thursday, August 22, on whether 52 French
peace activists could stay in the country, after the government
contested a judge's decision to allow the left-wingers both to remain
and to visit the Palestinian territories, their attorney said.
A
Jerusalem district court ruled Wednesday, August 21, that the activists
could remain in Israel and travel to the Palestinian territories, but
the Israeli government then appealed the verdict, the activists' lawyer
Lea Tsemel told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
An
appeal court will hear the case Thursday, August 22, she added.
Fifty-two
French peace activists, who were banned from entering Israel, were
transferred Tuesday, August 20 to Nazareth in the north while awaiting a
court decision on their appeal against being deported, one of the
activists said.
“We
lodged an appeal at the Jerusalem district court which is to decide
Wednesday afternoon, and in the meantime we've been transferred to a
hotel in Nazareth,” said Fernand Tuil, AFP reported.
Tuil,
head of an association for twinning French, Palestinian and Israeli
towns, denied Israeli accusations that his group had come to create
provocations.
The
peace activists were held for questioning immediately after they
disembarked from their Air France flight at Ben Gurion air port at Tel
Aviv.
“The
questioning of the passengers convinced us they had come to impede the
work of Israeli security forces," a ministry spokesman told AFP.
The
activists had planned to go to the northern Israeli cities of Nazareth
and Haifa, which have large Arab populations, for meetings with Israeli
Jewish and Arab peace groups, the group's organizers said.
They
were also supposed to visit Bethlehem in the West Bank, where Israeli
forces handed over security control to Palestinian police Tuesday after
a two-month occupation.
“These
accusations are absurd. We are responsible people who are supposed to be
here until August 26 to meet young Israelis, both Arabs and Jews, as
well as Palestinians to discuss peace ahead of a conference in Paris at
the end of three year,” Tuil told AFP by telephone.
“We
were due to visit Bethlehem in the West Bank where the army pulled out
from on Sunday night,” he added.
But
Israeli interior ministry spokeswoman Tova Ellinson insisted “they
have come to hinder the work of Israel's security forces, and as a
result they were refused entry.”
The
French foreign ministry expressed its surprise at the Israeli decision
Wednesday, saying the peace activists had traveled to Israel at the
invitation of a member of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.
"We
have told the Israeli authorities that the group's presence in Tel Aviv
was at the invitation of a member of the Knesset," foreign ministry
spokesman Francois Rivasseau said.
"We
have also expressed our deep surprise at the decision of the Israeli
authorities to keep the Air France plane which brought them to Tel
Aviv," he added.
The
spokesman said the French embassy in Tel Aviv would be offering
assistance to the French citizens within the framework of consular
protection provided under the Vienna Convention.
At
the beginning of August, nine international activists, three Americans,
an Irish person and five French, were arrested by the Israeli army
during a demonstration in Nablus in the northern West Bank, and then
deported.
They
were part of the International Civil Campaign for the Protection of the
Palestinian People, whose members were arrested during a peaceful
demonstration, violently broken up by the Israeli occupation army,
against the closure of Hawwara village near Nablus
.
