OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, August 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Israeli
Supreme Court on Tuesday, August 13, suspended the deportation to the
Gaza Strip of three relatives of Palestinian activists until their
cases are heard, court sources said.
The
three relatives filed an appeal Tuesday at Israel’s Supreme Court,
the rights group representing them said, Agence France-Presse (AFP)
reported.
A
decision by an army tribunal to expel the three is the first
application of a controversial new policy aimed at discouraging
further retaliatory suicide bombings against Israel.
The
Center of the Defense of the Individual, an Israeli rights group,
appealed the ruling Tuesday to the top court on behalf of the
defendants, said their lawyer, Lea Tsemel.
The
rights group, which mounted appeals against the original expulsion
orders, slammed the new ruling as a "collective punishment
contrary to international law and natural rights."
Tsemel
said "this is a pitiful decision," noting that "Israel
used to expel Palestinians to Arab countries," like Egypt and
Lebanon, and then just dumped them on the Lebanese border when that
country refused to accept them.
"The
Palestinian Authority shouldn't accept them [deportations]; if it
does, hundreds of Palestinians will be deported to Gaza," Tsemel
said.
She
said the military tribunal's judge had himself said that the Authority
cannot be obliged to accept them.
The
expulsion ruling deeply angered Palestinian officials who called it a
"war crime" and threatened to do their utmost to hamper its
application.
"The
decision to deport the families of our martyrs is a crime we cannot
remain silent over," Palestinian Presidnet Yasser Arafat told
reporters, according to AFP.
"We
will take measures to answer this step," he said, without saying
what the Palestinians would do.
Palestinian
Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo said in a statement: "The
Palestinian Authority will prevent this crime and will not facilitate
their [the expelled Palestinians] entry into Gaza.
"Israel's
aim is to evacuate the territories of their people ... and plan more
settlements," he charged.
Palestinian
factions have threatened retaliation if the deportation of martyrs’
relatives take place. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of
Arafat's Fatah movement, even threatened to attack the relatives of
Israeli officials.
The
two main Islamic resistance movements, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, also
rejected the expulsions, vowing to continue resistance against Israel.
The
United States has voiced its disapproval of deportations, and U.N.
Secretary General Kofi Annan said he was "deeply concerned"
by the proposed policy, urging Israel to respect the fourth Geneva
Convention, which deals with the protection of civilians in times of
war.
The
three were among 21 Palestinians arrested last month because they were
related to activists suspected of involvement in retaliatory
operations against Israel in July.
Israeli
law, inherited from the inter-war British mandate, allows for the
transfer of Palestinians living in the West Bank or Gaza Strip if
"they personally represent a security threat."
Critics
say that if it can be proved that relatives aided and abetted a
fighter's opration, they should be prosecuted for doing so through the
courts rather than dumped in the Gaza Strip.
The
military court in the West Bank settlement of Beit El, near Ramallah,
made its decision late Monday, August 12, in the case of Intissar
Adjuri, 34, from the Askar refugee camp near Nablus. Her slain brother
was accused of carrying out a July ambush of a Jewish settler bus.
But
the ruling also applies to her brother Kifah, 28, and to Abdel Nasser
Assidi, 34, from the village of Tel, who was also accused of
involvement in the attack.
