ISRAEL’S latest military orders facilitating the illegal expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland are simply the latest in a string of Zionist attempts to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians, Islamic Jihad officials stated Sunday.
The statement was issued only hours after Israeli media and human rights organisation HaMoked made public two Israeli military orders amending a 1969 act – itself amended in 1980 – allowing the detention and deportation of those described as ‘infiltrators’.
At the same time, chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat and Fatah Central Committee leader Nabil Sha’ath issued their own condemnations of the orders, with Erekat calling them ‘an assault on ordinary Palestinians, and an affront to the most fundamental principles of human rights,’ and the tools of an ‘apartheid state’.
For his part, Sha’ath accused Israel of throwing out the Oslo agreements and challenging the power of the Palestinian Authority to govern its citizens in Palestinian controlled areas.
‘What the occupying power is doing is punishing Palestinians for existing. Under this new Apartheid law, a Palestinian from the West Bank found in the Jordan Valley, a Gaza ID holder living in the West Bank, a Jerusalemite married to a Palestinian ID holder or a foreigner married to a Palestinian who lives in the West Bank can all be considered criminal offenders, meaning they can be imprisoned for up to three years or deported,’ a statement from Sha’ath’s office said.
According to analysts, the new definition is so broad it could be applied to tens of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank. Most likely, a HaMoked statement explained, the order would target Palestinians born in Gaza and foreign nationals married to Palestinians residing in the West Bank. A report in Israel’s Haaretz said the order was set to be used against Palestinians protesting land confiscation.
Palestinian Legislative Council members in Gaza denounced the order, describing it as ‘an attempt to void the West Bank gradually from its residents and to impose Zionist expansionist plans’.
‘The Israeli occupation has gone far with its procedures and plans with no one to stop them. These moves require a serious Palestinian, Arab and Muslim stance to fight back the Zionist entity and prevent it from continue its policy at the expense of the Palestinians and their national rights.’
The PLC said that to confront ‘these racist procedures’ the leadership should use all possible legal avenues.
Islamic Jihad called the reports an ‘announcement to Palestinians’ that they must ‘rearrange the situation’.
Nafeth Azzam, member of the Islamic Jihad politburo, said the policy was the result of a world content to stand back, thereby ‘encouraging the Zionist entity to continue with its racist procedures . . . this is the same path taken against the Palestinians from the start, it is happening now like it happened to Gaza in 2008-9’.
Erekat was no less damning of the orders, saying, ‘These orders have the effect of turning Palestinians into criminals in their own homes, while directly undermining the efforts of Palestinians to run their own internal affairs.
‘They also open the floodgate for Israel to target foreign-born spouses, foreign workers, and even Israeli citizens as “infiltrators”, as well as anyone participating in demonstrations in support of Palestinian rights and against Israel’s occupation.’
Under the new orders, anyone found without a designated permit, including Palestinians living in areas governed by the Palestinian Authority, can be imprisoned for up to seven years as well as expelled from the West Bank.
‘Most of all, they reveal the invidious design behind Israel’s settlement policy. The fewer Palestinians there are in the West Bank, including in occupied East Jerusalem, the more settlers there will be. Israel’s endgame is not peace. It is the colonisation of the West Bank,’ Erekat explained.
‘By systematically violating past agreements, as for example in its refusal to freeze settlements, and undermining international efforts to resume negotiations, Israel is turning the Palestinian-Israeli conflict into a zero sum game. At a time when the international community is trying to create an environment conducive to negotiations, these military orders achieve the exact opposite result.’
l The Gaza Electricity Company has transferred three million US dollars to the Palestinian Authority treasury in Ramallah on Sunday, after Palestinian factions met to discuss the means to bring an end to blackouts experienced across the Gaza Strip.
Yasser Al-Wadiyah, independent politician representative, announced the transfer, saying it ‘was agreed on during the meeting to transfer the appropriate fees, collected from Gaza residents to the PA in Ramallah’.
The official said the meeting included all Palestinian factions and independent figures, as well as various heads, board members, directors and representatives of the private sector in Gaza and NGOs.
‘The meeting was held to discuss the means of getting the electricity situation back to normal and provide the power plant with the needed industrial fuel to avoid similar crises that would harm the health and education sectors,’ Al-Wadiyah said.
Meanwhile, head of PR at the Gaza Electricity Company, Jamal Ad-Dardasawi, said fuel transfers for Gaza’s sole power station had resumed, with three truckloads carrying 220,000 litres of diesel permitted into the besieged coastal enclave via its southern crossing with Israel, Kerem Shalom.
‘This fuel transfer will be spread over five days, with 1,100,100 litres fuel to be delivered within a week,’ Ad-Dardasawi said. ‘The Israelis permit the maxim entry of 2,200,000 litres into Gaza,’ he added, saying ‘This is only enough to operate one out of four generators in the plant.
‘The power station will be able to provide residents in the districts most affected by the fuel shortage with up to eight hours of electricity, instead of the current six hours of power and 12 hours of blackouts.’
Shortages have plagued the power plant since December 2009, when European Union officials handed over responsibility for fuel transfers to the Palestinian Authority, apparently at the PA’s request so EU aid could be channelled into civil servant salaries.
Ever since the handover, as well as the corresponding closure of the main fuel transfer terminal at Nahal Oz, fuel imports have fallen to 50 per cent of recent capacity.
‘This [the latest transfer] is insufficient and is not a way out of this major crisis faced by Gaza residents, but it is a step in the right direction, as it amends the electricity distribution to districts that are enveloped in darkness,’ said Ad-Dardasawi.
‘I hope that the appropriate circumstances are created to increase the amount of fuel allowed in for the power plant to guarantee that at least two generators are functioning, to meet the residents’ power needs,’ he said, expecting an increase in use over the summer.
The sole power generator in the Gaza Strip was completely closed down on Saturday, the head of the electric company announced, following a day of unheeded warnings that a humanitarian crisis was at hand.
Walid Sa’d Sayel, who also heads the Gaza power plant’s board of directors, called the energy crisis ‘catastrophic’ insisting that relevant authorities ‘rescue the Gazans, who are human beings first and foremost, and they rely on power as much as they need water and air. Without action, we face a humanitarian disaster of unprecedented scale’.
Shortly after the announcement, both the PA and the Gaza government launched accusations at each other over responsibility for Gaza’s ongoing fuel shortage, with Hamas alleging the Ramallah-based leadership had used EU funds intended for diesel transfers to increase civil servants’ salaries.
l Four days after an Israeli minister threatened to restrict the West Bank’s water supply, Israeli authorities closed off the main water source used for agriculture in a Jordan Valley village on Sunday, committee members and lawyers said.
The Bardalah village’s farmers could stand to lose not only profit, but the land’s viability, and have protested the decision.
Fathi Ikdeirat, campaign coordinator for Save the Jordan Valley said ‘The decision threatens to destroy tens of thousands of agricultural farmlands, greenhouses, citrus and palm trees, particularly as its the season for vegetable harvesting and when fruits bloom.’