Posted on 05/18/2004 7:52:04 AM PDT by yonif
The Palestinian Authority is appealing to the international community to put pressure on Israel to end its massive military operation in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian Negotiations Affairs Minister Saeb Erekat said Tuesday.
The Arab League, responding to Palestinian appeals, convened Tuesday in Cairo and said the Israeli operation was aimed at "ethnic cleansing." The League also said it would start taking judicial steps to bring Israelis to trial for war crimes.
After a day of military build-up and the isolation of Rafah from the rest of the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces launched an operation early Tuesday in the town aimed at halting weapons smuggling from neighboring Egypt, and arresting or killing militants.
Over the weekend, the IDF demolished dozens of homes in Rafah refugee camp, saying that they had been used as cover for Palestinian gunmen. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has since set up tents to take in 1,500 displaced people.
Erekat told Voice of Palestine Radio from Spain that the PA was holding "extensive contacts" with countries to persuade them to act immediately to stop the Rafah raid, which has seen at least 13 Palestinians killed and hundreds of Rafah residents flee their homes fearing further house demolitions.
"We call upon the whole world to immediately intervene to block Israel's military escalation," said Erekat.
Speaking to reporters in Ramallah, PA Chairman Yasser Arafat's top aide, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, called the offensive a "war of annihilation" and a "humanitarian disaster." He also called for outside intervention to stop "these massacres."
The Arab League on Tuesday likened the IDF offensive in Rafah to "war crimes," in a statement issued after an urgent meeting in Cairo.
"(The council)...holds the government of Israel wholly responsible for the consequences of the crimes it is committing against the unarmed Palestinian people, and condemns them as war crimes aimed at ethnic cleansing and collective punishment," said the governments, meeting at the level of permanent representatives to the Arab League.
Israel bears the full responsibility for the "crimes against unarmed Palestinians," it added.
"(The council)...affirms that the Arab legal authorities, in coordination with relevant international organisations, will prosecute the Israeli war crimes and present for trial the perpetrators and those responsible for them," the statement said.
The Arab League meeting had been convened at the behest of Palestinians.
Meretz MK Yossi Sarid said Tuesday that Israel's demolition of houses in Rafah constitutes a war crime.
Upon leaving a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Sarid said that "when children flee for their lives, dragging a suitcase bigger than them behind them, it is certainly seen as a war crime in the international community."
He told the IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon on Tuesday during the committee meeting that he believes the operation in Rafah will have to be stopped due to international pressure.
The attack coincides with the release Tuesday of a report by human rights group Amnesty International, which charges that Israel is guilty of war crimes and grave breaches of the Geneva Convention in its destruction of large numbers of Palestinian homes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the more than three years of the intifada.
The raid also drew United Nations and European Union criticism over fears it could make thousands more Palestinians homeless. Israel's main ally, the United States, also said it was concerned.
The EU on Tuesday reiterated its condemnation of the military action, warning the demolitions of Palestinian homes broke the "spirit and the letter" of the internationally-brokered road map to Middle East peace.
"What is taking place now in Gaza is something that we have to condemn and condemn very strongly," said Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy representative.
"What is going on is the destruction of houses and that is something that goes very much against the letter and the spirit of the road map," he told reporters.
Solana said the EU was willing to help Israel withdraw from Gaza under a plan proposed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. But he said of the demolitions were "not the manner to have a disengagement from Gaza."
On Monday, foreign ministers from the 25-nation EU issued a statement urging Israel to "cease such demolitions immediately" adding they violated "Israel's obligations under the road map."
He said the United States, United Nations and Russia - the EU's co-sponsors of the road map - had similar views on the demolitions.
Boy, this must really be hurting!!!!The squeal is is direct proportion to the effectiveness...Keep it up IDF!
Oooh, waah, waah.
... and deciphered as we read between the lines, "Please stop killing our terrorist soldiers"
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