British lawyers representing the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Ahmed Saadat, are considering suing the British Foreign Office over its decision to withdraw monitors from a West Bank jail minutes before Israeli occupation troops stormed the compound and detained the Palestinian leader.
Two Palestinian security guards were killed and 26 others wounded, five of them critically, in the Israeli raid, which drew rebuke from the Palestinian National Authority, the Arab League and the Organisation of Islamic Conference.
Citing Saadat, Daniel Machover, of the London solicitors Hickman and Rose, said the monitors had indicated several times in the past that they would withdraw and had made clear that if they did the lives of the prisoners would be at risk.
The lawyers are building their case, if it were to go ahead, on Article Five of the European Convention of Human Rights.
This article deals with the proper treatment of prisoners in detention as the British government knew of the dangers facing Saadat if the monitors left.
Saadat, who was abducted by Israeli forces after a nine-hour armed siege, will have to give his approval to the lawyers to initiate the case.
Saadat has been in the jail compound since 2000 despite a Palestinian High Court decision ordering his release.
He along with five others were accused by Israel of involvement in killing its tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi.
They were placed under foreign watch in the Palestinian prison according to an agreement that ended the Israeli siege of the headquarters of late Palestinian president Yasser Arafat, who refused to hand Saadat over to Israel.
Meanwhile, the latest Israeli aggression continues on a daily basis.
Last Sunday, a pre-dawn air raid by Israeli war planes hit a water pipe in the Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis.
Mayor of al-Fakhari municipality, Auda al-Amour told Palestinian news agency WAFA that the missile that hit Salah al-Deen road, which links between Rafah and Khan Younis, destroyed the water pipe that supplies water to the towns of al-Fakhari and Um an-Nasser.
He added that the destruction of the pipe prevented 6,500 people from getting water, asserting the municipality efforts to repair the pipe.
Al-Amour called on the international community and the Middle East Quartet (the US, EU, Russia and the UN) to shoulder their responsibility towards the Palestinian people and to pressurise Israel to end its collective punishment policy against the Palestinian people.
At pre-dawn, an Israeli jet-fighter launched a missile on Abassan town, east of the city on an open area, causing a state of fear and panic among citizens, particularly children and women.
In the meantime, an Israeli US-made F16 warplane launched two missiles on Beit Lahiya, north of the Gaza Strip, where one missile was exploded.
Ambulances and medical teams rushed to the site, but no casualities were reported.
Also last Sunday, Israeli bulldozers demolished two houses belonging to Arab Israelis in Lod under the pretext of having no building license.
Anti Demolition Popular Committee spokesman in Lod City, lawyer, Khalid Zabarqa, said that Israeli border police, accompanied by Israeli bulldozers, stormed al-Waha al-Khadra neighbourhood in Israel’s Lod City and destroyed two houses.
He pointed out that the Israeli act comes under a series of demolishing of Arab houses where two houses were demolished last year.
Worth to say, the Israeli bulldozers demolished last Wednesday four houses in Dohmosh neighbourhood in Lod.
Last Friday night, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a ten-year-old girl during a raid in the northern West Bank village of Yamoun.
The girl was in a car with her uncle, who was shot in the head and detained, the girl’s father, Abdul Rahman Zayed, said.
The victim was identified as Akaber Zayed, Palestinian medical sources confirmed.
The Israeli shooting followed a raid on the northern West Bank city of Jenin on Thursday.
Earlier on Thursday morning, Israel launched air strikes targeting access roads in the Gaza Strip after a barrage of home-made rockets hit open areas in southern Israel.
No injuries or damage were reported.
On Wednesday night, a Palestinian teenager was shot dead by Israeli fire near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Meanwhile, a new report published recently by the Palestinian national information centre (PNIC) has indicated that the Israeli occupation forces have killed 4,298 Palestinians while 46,353 others were wounded since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000 till February 2006.
The report added that 801 minors and 394 activists were killed by Israeli forces.
