Category: Press Releases

We, the Israeli organizations signed below, deplore the decision by the Israeli government to cut off vital supplies of electricity and fuel (and therefore water, since the pumps cannot work), as well as essential foodstuffs, medicines and other humanitarian supplies to the civilian population of Gaza. Such an action constitutes a clear and unequivocal crime against humanity.

Prof. John Dugard, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, called the Israeli government’s actions “serious war crimes” for which its political and military officials should be prosecuted and punished. The killing of more than 40 civilians this past week violates, he said, “the strict prohibition on collective punishment contained in the Fourth Geneva Convention. It also violates one of the basic principles of international humanitarian law that military action must distinguish between military targets and civilian targets.” Indeed, the very legal framework invoked by the Israeli government to carry out this illegal and immoral act – declaring Gaza a “hostile entity” within a “conflict short of war” – has absolutely no standing in international law.

We call on the Secretary General of the UN, Mr. Ban Ki-Moon, to lead the Security Council to a decisive decision to end the siege on Gaza when it meets in emergency session on Wednesday.

We call on the governments of the world, and in particular the American government and the European Parliament, to censure Israel’s actions and, in light of recent attempts to revive the diplomatic process, to end all attacks on civilians, including the continuing demolition of Palestinian homes at an alarming rate.

We call upon the Jews of the world in whose name the Israeli government purports to speak, and upon their rabbis and communal leaders in particular, to speak out unequivocally against this offense to the very moral core of Jewish values.

And we call upon the peoples of the world to let their officials and leaders know of their repudiation of this cruel, illegal and immoral act – an act that stands out in its cruelty even in an already oppressive Israeli Occupation.

We condemns attacks on all civilians, and we acknowledge the suffering of the residents of Sderot. Still, those attacks do not justify the massive disproportionality of Israeli sanctions over a million and half civilians of Gaza, in particular in light of Israel’s oppressive 40 year occupation. Such violations of international law by a government are especially egregious and must be denounced and punished if the very system of human rights and international law is to be preserved.

The Israeli government’s decision to punish Gaza’s civilian population, with all the human suffering that entails, constitutes State Terrorism against innocent people. Only when Israeli policy-makers are held accountable for their actions and international law upheld will a just peace be possible in the Middle East.

The Alternative Information Center * Bat Tsafon * Gush Shalom * The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) * Physicians for Human Rights * The Women’s Coalition for Peace

BY LUISA MORGANTINI
VICEPRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Strasbourg , 17th January

“23 Palestinians killed and other 55 blessed (wounded), children, women and men, by Israeli raids in only two days: where is the EU strong condemnation of these murders?” -asked Luisa Morgantini, Vice President of the European Parliament expressing a deep concern regarding the escalation of violence of these days in Palestine and Israel.

“It is really astonishing- added Luisa Morgantini- that EU High Representative Javier Solana didn’t say clearly that this Israeli policy is killing all hopes for peace and undermines the tenacious efforts by President Mahmoud Abbas and PM Salam Fayyad in seeking support and unity in their exhausted, occupied and besieged people.

Solana together with the entire International Community should strongly call on the Israeli Government to stop this violence and the collective punishment towards the civil population in Gaza Strip and in West Bank, as well as firmly reaffirm that all the settlements expansion’s policy on the Palestinian land of West Bank and East Jerusalem must be immediately freezed: these are the urgent and urged steps for a just peace, as Annapolis’ purposes reaffirmed.

Of course at the same time, the rockets from Gaza Strip on the Israeli town of Sderot must be stopped: they are aiming to kill civilian population and are a sign of impotence and not of resistance actuated by extremist groups of Palestinians. Besides, I feel a deep pain for the young Ecuadorian volunteer killed by Palestinian extremist fire while he was working in a kibbutz in Ein Hashlosha. But the tragedy goes on everyday in the occupied Palestine: 17 Gazans killed by Israeli forces in less than four hours, many other are dead in the following hours, including civilians and children, and not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank.

With all this blood, with all this deaths nobody can be absolved for his silence: EU, as the Quartet policy, also is responsible and must break this silence, taking the consequent commitment: to end the siege in Gaza, to provide international protection for the civilian population, both Palestinians and Israelis, to work for the unity of the Palestinian people and for the end of occupation. This is the way to dismantle every military action taken by Palestinian extremists. But above all, this is the time to make pressures on the Israeli Government to stand by their words of seeking peace and security: its policy on the ground is just destroying any possibility of peace and security for both people”.

Further information Luisa Morgantini 0039 348 39 21 465 or Office in Rome 0039 06 69 95 02 17

luisa.morgantini@europarl.europa.eu
www.luisamorgantini.net