IGNORING international outcries for restraint and diplomacy, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) overnight Thursday reoccupied a belt of the northern Gaza Strip, called it a buffer zone, including the sites of three former Jewish colonial settlements, amid Palestinian, Arab and Islamic diplomatic efforts to stop the Israeli invasion.
President Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday chaired an emergency meeting for the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in Gaza City.
The Committee decided to be in session until the current crisis is over and set up a national committee to manage the crisis, chaired by Abbas and comprising representatives of the government, the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), the national and Islamic political groups and the civil society.
The PLO called on the international community to take active measures to put an end to the Israeli aggressions, which will lead to a humanitarian crisis, according to a statement released by the official news agency, WAFA.
The PLO stressed national unity. Abbas has decided to temporarily suspend a controversial referendum on the ‘prisoners’ document’ scheduled for July 26, according to the Al-Quds daily on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Arab and Islamic nations renewed a drive at the United Nations for a Security Council resolution demanding that Israel immediately pull out of Gaza and release all Palestinian officials it has kidnapped.
Ambassadors from the 57 nations making up the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) met in New York to adopt a statement condemning Israel’s ‘large-scale military assault’ in Gaza and its arrest and detention of Palestinian officials.
The bloc called on the UN Security Council to ‘act promptly’ to pressure Israel to ‘cease its aggression’ against Palestinian civilians and seek emergency aid for Gaza.
Arab and Islamic groups at the UN had approved a draft resolution proposed by delegations of Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon and Tunisia.
The two groups presented the draft resolution to the Secretary of UN Human Rights Council to make it an official document to be submitted on Thursday to the Council’s extraordinary meeting to study Israel violations of human rights in the Palestinian territories.
The draft calls for stopping the Israeli military attack on Gaza Strip as well as halting the Israeli continued violations against Palestinians, and condemning Israeli arrests of the Palestinian officials and ministers.
The Secretary General of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, has sent letters to the international parties at the Quartet Committee – UN, US, Russia and the European Union – and to the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Javier Solana condemning the Israeli oppressive practices against the Palestinian people, the OIC said in a statement.
On Tuesday Palestinian envoy Nabil Sha’th met with Arab League Secretary-General Amre Mousa in Cairo and called for an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers and the formation of a committee to face the current crisis caused by Israel.
The same day Palestinian Justice Minister Ahmad al-Khalidi told the London daily al-Quds al-Arabi that the Palestinian government is filing a war crimes lawsuit against Israel at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
Meanwhile Israel’s Political-Security Cabinet held an emergency meeting on Wednesday, after a Qassam rocket landed inside the Israeli southern town of Ashkelon, 10 kilometres from the border with the Gaza Strip, which Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert condemned as ‘a very serious incident, which constitutes an escalation of unprecedented gravity.’
The Cabinet authorised Olmert and ‘Defense’ Minister Peretz ‘to instruct the security establishment to continue its preparations for prolonged and graduated security activity,’ according to a communiqué released after the meeting.
The Cabinet also decided to strike at Hamas in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, ‘with emphasis on striking at institutions and infrastructures that serve terrorism,’ ‘Continuing and increasing counter-terrorist actions’ and ‘Reducing terrorists’ freedom of movement by continuing to section off the Gaza Strip.’
After the meeting, and under covering fire from helicopter gunships, tanks moved into an area including the rubble of three of the Jewish colonial settlements evacuated when Israel redeployed from Gaza last summer after 38 years of occupation.
Israeli air strikes on northern Gaza Strip overnight and early Thursday, killed four Palestinians, including a policeman.
UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, on Wednesday urged Israelis and Palestinians to ‘step back from the brink,’ warning that their escalating confrontation could soon turn explosive.
‘The situation is dangerous and could be explosive. The secretary-general urges all concerned to step back from the brink,’ Annan’s spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement, issued in Ghana where Annan was visiting.
The new United Nation Human Right Council (HRC) met in New York and denounced the Jewish state’s military actions in Gaza, which they said were in violation of international humanitarian and human rights law.
The decision was taken to hold the HRC’s special session upon a request by 21 Member States of the Council at the end of is first session, which concluded on Friday. The session was to reconvene Thursday to begin considering a draft resolution on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories, with a view to a vote.
Addressing the Council at the invitation of the Arab Group, John Dugard, Special Rapporteur for the human rights situation in Palestine, said recent actions in the Middle East, where an Israeli army post was attacked and one of its soldiers kidnapped, did not ‘warrant the disproportionate retaliation they have prompted’ and called attention to the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Palestinian areas.
Dugard also accused the Middle East diplomatic Quartet, consisting of the UN, the United States, the Russian Federation and the European Union, of failing to address what he called Israeli’s violations of international human rights law.
