PALESTINE Liberation Organisation (PLO) Executive Committee member and chief negotiator Dr. Saeb Erekat issued a defiant statement on Monday in response to the halting of Palestinian tax revenues by Israel.
‘In response to our legitimate step to seek international justice for our people following decades of Israeli human rights violations combined with impunity for its crimes, the Government of Israel has announced that it will take several punitive measures against our nation.
‘Israel is once again responding to our legal steps with further illegal collective punishments.
‘A few hours ago, we have been unofficially informed that the Government of Israel has decided not to transfer our revenues, which, according to signed agreements, are the revenues they collect on our behalf and are obliged to transfer to us. Israel is using piracy against international law.
‘This is not Israeli charity to the Palestinian people they are withholding, but our own money, which is rightfully ours.
‘By taking such steps Israel aims at breaking the will of a nation that is using peaceful tools granted by international law in its struggle against colonialism and in its pursuit of freedom and independence.
‘Just as any other colonial power before, Israel will not succeed. If Israel, or any other country, wants to punish our people for seeking freedom and independence through diplomacy and non-violent means, we would like to reaffirm that this will not stop us.
‘Palestine will continue its march towards an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
‘Once again we call upon the international community to assume its responsibility, hold Israel accountable for its international law violations, and support Palestinian diplomatic initiatives in order to ensure a just and lasting peace.’
Erekat also announced on Monday that the Palestinian leadership will bring another resolution to the UN Security Council calling for an end to the Israeli occupation.
In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Yadiot Ahronot, Erekat said that the timing of the submission of the new resolution would be determined during a meeting with Arab ministers to be held later this month.
Meanwhile, Palestine will become a member of the International Criminal Court by March, Erekat said. He said that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu should be held accountable for freezing millions of dollars in tax revenues earlier this week, and that the Palestinian Authority could not pay its employees’ salaries or administer schools without the funds.
‘Our independence and freedom are above everything else, unlike what Netanyahu thinks,’ Erekat said.
Erekat called for activating a financial security web agreed upon in the Kuwait summit, with Arab countries providing $100 million per month to the PA until it is able to make ends meet.
Israeli authorities on Saturday froze the transfer of tax funds collected by Israel for the Palestinian Authority in response to President Mahmoud Abbas’ decision to sign the Rome Statute.
Under interim peace deals, Israel collects taxes on behalf of the PA, money it needs to pay public sector salaries.
Each month, PA salaries cost around $200 million, $120 million of which is covered from the taxes collected by Israel.
Palestine brought a resolution last week to the UN Security Council calling for statehood and an end to the Israeli occupation, but the resolution failed to obtain the necessary amount of votes.
The first case Palestine will refer to the International Criminal Court will be the crimes Israel committed during the summer of 2014, including the Gaza war, a legal expert said on Sunday.
On January 2nd, Palestine presented a formal request to join the Hague-based court in a move which opens the way for it to file suit against Israeli officials for alleged war crimes in the occupied territories.
The ICC can prosecute individuals accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed since July 1, 2002, when the court’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, came into force.
If the application process goes as planned, Palestine should be able to refer a case in early April, with legal preparations to that end already well under way.
Shawan Jabarin, director of the Ramallah-based rights group al-Haq, said Palestine had decided to file a suit over Israel’s actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip starting from June 13, 2014.
That was the date Israel began a massive crackdown in the West Bank, triggering a series of events which led to the seven-week Gaza war that killed over 2,300 Palestinians and 73 people on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers.
Cases referred to the ICC need ‘a very specific geographic location and timeframe,’ Jabarin stated, saying the same date had been selected by a UN commission probing alleged rights violations during the Gaza war and the period leading up to it.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Erakat confirmed Gaza would be one of the cases referred to the court, but also said there would be a file put together on Israeli settlement building on land seized during the 1967 Six-Day War.
‘The main files will be the aggression against Gaza and the settlement file, since this is a continuous crime,’ Erakat said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, a rights group reported on Monday that over 7,000 Palestinians were detained in 2014, an 80 per cent increase since 2013.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Centre for Studies said in a statement that in 2014, 7,110 Palestinians were detained by Israeli forces, compared with 4,250 in 2013.
In 2013, the number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails was 5,000, while at the end of 2014 there were 6,800 Palestinians being held in Israeli jails, researcher Riyad al-Ashqar said in the statement.
Additionally, there was a 57 per cent increase in Israeli detentions of children in 2013 – 1,200 Palestinian minors were detained in 2014 while 760 were detained in 2013.
Women were also detained in higher numbers, with 126 Palestinian women detained in 2014 compared to 83 in 2013.
Some 76 former prisoners were rearrested by the Israeli army in 2014, while only eight were rearrested in 2013.
Finally, the number of administrative detainees – Palestinians held in Israeli prisons without charge or trial – increased by around 250 per cent, the statement said. The number of administrative prisoners reached 560 in 2014 compared to 150 in 2013.
The policy of administrative detention, which dates back to the British mandate period, allows Israel to hold Palestinian prisoners indefinitely without trial on the basis of secret information.
According to a 2013 report by the UN’s Children’s Fund, Israel is the only country in the world where children are systematically tried in military courts and subjected to ‘cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment’.
Over the past decade, Israeli forces have arrested, interrogated, and prosecuted around 7,000 children between 12 and 17, mostly boys, at a rate of ‘an average of two children each day,’ UNICEF said.
Thirteen Palestinians from Gaza were on Monday allowed to enter Israel to visit family members jailed in Eshel prison, a Red Cross spokeswoman said.
Suheir Zaqqut of the International Committee of the Red Cross said that 13 Palestinians, including two children, were able to cross into Israel to visit nine jailed relatives.
There are some 450 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip in Israeli jails. Israel denied Gaza prisoners family visits when Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, but in July 2012, family visits resumed.
Only very close relatives are allowed to visit Gaza prisoners in Israeli custody. Also on Monday, Israeli forces demolished several shops in a village near Bethlehem.
Bulldozers destroyed Palestinian shops near the entrance of Hussan, with Israeli soldiers claiming the structures were built without permits.
Israeli forces also raided Hebron and demolished a house under construction on Monday, locals said.
Locals reported that Israeli bulldozers demolished a house that was being built by Abd al-Rahim al-Jaabari in the Ein Bani Sleim area in eastern Hebron.
Israel rarely grants construction permits to Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and regularly demolishes structures built without permits.
Israeli bulldozers demolished at least 552 Palestinian structures in the West Bank in 2014, according to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.
