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2011年6月28日星期二

Israeli, Palestinian rights groups unite for Shalit (AFP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israeli, Palestinian and international human rights groups issued a joint statement on Friday demanding that Gaza militants end "inhumane" treatment of an Israeli soldier they hold captive.

The declaration, signed by Israeli group B'Tselem, the Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and eight others, comes as Israel marks the fifth anniversary of the capture of Gilad Shalit by three groups, including the Islamist Hamas.

"Those holding him have refused to allow him to communicate with his family, nor have they provided information on his well-being and the conditions in which he is being held," the statement said in English, Arabic and Hebrew. "This conduct is inhumane and a violation of international humanitarian law."

"Hamas authorities in Gaza must immediately end the cruel and inhuman treatment of Gilad Shalit," it added. "Until he is released, they must enable him to communicate with his family and should grant him access to the International Committee of the Red Cross."

In a message accompanying the statement, B'Tselem pointed out that its wording represented a consensus between groups with disparate views on the Shalit case.

"The organisations take a variety of positions on the issue," it wrote. "Some call for the immediate release of Shalit, while others support a prisoner swap."

"Some of the organisations have not made any statements until today. It is therefore particularly significant that the organisations have united around a joint message."

An Israeli spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Ran Goldstein, told Israeli public radio that the organisation had been in contact with Hamas since the soldier was captured.

"Our main option is covert dialogue and that's what we've been doing for five years in the case of Gilad Shalit, whether in Gaza or elsewhere, meeting senior Hamas officials with the aim of getting access to Gilad Shalit and also in an attempt to persuade them to let him contact his family," he said.

Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday evening that in response to Hamas's continuing refusal to allow Red Cross visits to Shalit he had instructed the Israel Prisons Service to curtail privileges granted to Palestinian militant inmates.

"I'm not going to detail the measures, but I can tell you the party's over," Netanyahu said in a speech at an international conference in Jerusalem.

"I would like to give one example: I have stopped the absurd procedure whereby terrorists in Israeli prisons for murdering innocents can sign up for academic studies. There will be no more masters degrees in murder or doctors of terrorism," he said.

Shalit was 19 when he was captured in southern Israel on June 25, 2006, by militants who staged a cross-border raid from the Gaza Strip. He has been held ever since at a secret location there.

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2011年6月27日星期一

Palestinians pelt Gaza Red Cross office with eggs (AFP)

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Palestinians threw eggs at the international Red Cross office in Gaza on Thursday to protest against a call for Hamas to show signs a captured Israeli soldier was still alive.

Dozens of angry protesters also chanted slogans against the International Committee of the Red Cross and ripped down and destroyed the Red Cross sign over the office.

They were protesting over a call earlier on Thursday by the ICRC, demanding that Gaza rulers show proof that Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured five years ago, is alive.

Hamas, while not directly rejecting the Red Cross call, said Shalit would be freed only once Israel released Palestinian prisoners.

"We will only consider resolving the Shalit issue if the issue of Palestinian prisoners in the occupation's prisons is resolved," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.

Indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas for a deal that would see 1,000 Palestinians, including 450 with Israeli blood on their hands, released in exchange for Shalit have been stalled for over a year.

Shalit was 19 when he was captured on June 25, 2006, by three armed groups, including Hamas, along the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip. He has been held ever since at a secret location in the Palestinian territory.

He has not been allowed visits by the Red Cross, and the last sign of life was in October 2009 when Hamas released a video of him calling on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do everything to free him.

"The total absence of information concerning Mr Shalit is completely unacceptable," said Yves Daccord, the ICRC's director general.

"The Shalit family have the right under international humanitarian law to be in contact with their son."

But the protest, organised by a Palestinian prisoners organisation, said the Red Cross should focus on the plight of the thousands of Palestinians in Israeli jails.

"The world and its Red Cross cry for one Israeli prisoner and try to forget thousands of Palestinian prisoners," one banner said.

The Red Cross has regular access to all Palestinian prisoners.

Israel has accused the Red Cross of not doing enough to secure access to Shalit.

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Israel takes down barbed wire at West Bank protest site (AFP)

BILIN, Palestinian Territories (AFP) – Israeli troops on Wednesday began taking down barbed wire around the West Bank village of Bilin, focus of years of protests against Israel's controversial separation barrier, an AFP correspondent reported.

Army bulldozers were seen razing a watchtower on a hill overlooking the village but the military declined to comment on the significance of the operation.

Last year, the defence ministry announced that it would begin altering the course of the barrier around Bilin in conformity with a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that it significantly impinged on the property rights of Palestinian landowners.

Israel says the barrier is designed to prevent attacks but the Palestinians view it as an "apartheid wall" that carves off key parts of their promised state.

When the 709-kilometre (435-mile) barrier is complete, 85 percent of it will have been built inside the occupied West Bank.

"The Israeli army began removing the barbed wire around the village today, four years after the ruling of the Israeli court," said Rateb Abu Rahmah, one of the organisers of the weekly protests in the village.

"The dismantlement of the wall is the fruit of the struggle by the people of the village," he added.

The Palestinians' protests against the barrier in Bilin have met with a sometimes deadly response from the Israeli security forces.

In January, a woman protester, Jawaher Abu Rahmah, died after inhaling tear gas. Her brother Bassem Abu Rahmah died in April 2009 after being struck on the head by a tear-gas canister.

In a non-binding 2004 judgement, the International Court of Justice called for the dismantling of all parts of the separation barrier built on occupied territory.

After a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories last month, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos described the barrier's impact on the lives of ordinary Palestinians as "devastating".

"I witnessed first hand the impact of the barrier on Palestinian communities. I was deeply disturbed by what I saw," she said.

"I recognise Israel's concern about security but the impact of the barrier is devastating. It's clear that civilians are bearing the brunt of the continuing conflict and occupation."

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Israel 'determined' to halt Gaza flotilla: UN envoy (AFP)

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – Israel is "determined" to stop an activist flotilla that will try to reach the besieged Gaza Strip next week, the country's UN envoy said Thursday.

Setting off a new dispute with his Palestinian counterpart, ambassador Ron Prosor said: "Israel is determined to stop this flotilla. Israel has the right to self defense." He called the protest a "provocation."

"The flotilla has nothing constructive -- there is nothing humanitarian or anything that has to do with Palestinian welfare in the organizing of this flotilla," he told reporters as the UN Security Council held talks on the Middle East including the flotilla.

Prosor called the organizers "extremists."

About 10 boats are to take part in the flotilla which is set to leave 13 months after Israeli commandos halted a previous aid armada heading for Gaza, killing nine people, mainly Turkish nationals.

A group of pro-Palestinian activists, led by several Turkish groups, have said they plan to sail to Gaza, mainly from Greek ports, in a repeat of the mission violently halted on May 31 last year.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and a number of governments have warned the flotilla not to start. The US government has warned its nationals against taking part in the protest.

Israel has strongly urged Turkey to block the flotilla from leaving. The United Nations has said that aid shipments should be sent through formal UN structures.

The Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, Riyadh Mansour, spoke up for the flotilla protest however. "If this blockade of Gaza was lifted there might not be the need for many of the things which are happening and might happen," he told reporters.

Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza in 2006 after militants snatched Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. A ban on civilian goods and foodstuffs was eased last year but many restrictions remain in place.

Mansour rejected the Israeli envoy's condemnation of Palestinian moves to seek international recognition of a Palestinian state at the United Nations in September. Prosor said the "unilateral" action risked putting back peace efforts.

"The biggest illegal action we have seen for a long time is the illegal settlement campaign by Israel against our people," Mansour said.

Palestinians were ready to negotiate on final status issues with Israel, he said. "Our independence is not one of these six final status issues."

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Cyprus bans all sailings to Gaza ahead of flotilla plan (Reuters)

NICOSIA (Reuters) – Cyprus said on Thursday it had banned all sailings to Gaza, serving notice to any pro-Palestinian activists who might use the Mediterranean island as a springboard to challenge Israel's blockade of the territory.

Activists are planning to send an aid flotilla to Gaza from ports around Europe this month, defying warnings from Israel which has tight sea and land border controls around the enclave.

There had been no suggestion that Cyprus would be used for sailings, but the Mediterranean island was the launchpad for earlier voyages to Gaza which started in 2008.

It invoked a ban last year, just before nine Turkish activists were killed in an Israeli raid on an aid convoy which triggered a crisis in already strained relations between Israel and Turkey.

Organizers say a new flotilla of 10 ships would sail for Gaza from ports around Europe on June 25.

Israel has said it will prevent any new aid flotilla approaching Gaza, warning that any challenge could have "dangerous consequences."

Activists had said in May that about 1,500 people from around 100 countries would participate in the flotilla, carrying humanitarian aid and construction materials to Gaza.

Cyprus's ban applied to locally and foreign vessels, and to individuals who may attempt to leave Cyprus and embark on a Gaza-bound vessel at sea, the island's transport ministry said in a statement.

(Writing by Michele Kambas, editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

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AP Exclusive: Palestinians ready to ease demands (AP)

RAMALLAH, West Bank – The Palestinians are ready to ease their demand for a freeze on Israeli settlement construction to get peace talks back on track, a top official told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The softened position reflects the Palestinians' growing realization that their alternative strategies to talks — reconciling with the Hamas militant group and seeking unilateral recognition at the United Nations — are both in trouble.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing a sensitive diplomatic proposal, said the Palestinians will ease the demand for a full construction freeze and resume peace talks if Israel accepts President Barack Obama's proposal to base negotiations on a broad Israeli withdrawal from lands captured in the 1967 Mideast war.

The issue is at the heart of the current impasse. The latest round of talks was launched last September at the White House after a two-year breakdown, only to collapse three weeks later with the expiration of an Israeli slowdown on settlement construction.

The Palestinians have been demanding a full freeze on all construction — which would go further than that slowdown — before resuming negotiations. Any move to drop or significantly ease that demand could put greater pressure on Israel to respond positively — perhaps by accepting Obama's formula, which it has not done.

Officials in the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wouldn't comment on the Palestinians' latest offer.

A new complication emerged earlier this year when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party — frustrated over the impasse with Israel — began unity talks with its rival, Hamas. Israel has said it cannot negotiate with Abbas if he presides over a government that includes the Islamic militant group, which is sworn to Israel's destruction.

Difficulties that have emerged in implementing the unity pact — especially over the choice of prime minister — could render those objections moot.

With both the reconciliation effort and their U.N. strategy on the rocks, the Palestinians appear to be seeking a face-saving formula that would allow them to restart negotiations.

For months, the Palestinians have been saying there is no point in negotiating if Israel continues to build up Jewish enclaves in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured in the 1967 Mideast war and claimed by the Palestinians for their future state.

But on Thursday, a senior Palestinian official told the AP that the Palestinians could live with a construction slowdown, in which Israel continues building projects already under construction but agrees not to approve any new projects.

In return, he said the Palestinians want Israel to accept Obama's plan calling for an independent state based on Israel's pre-1967 lines, albeit with some modifications through mutually agreed "land swaps."

The Palestinians have presented their ideas to American mediators visiting the region in recent days in an effort to get long-stalled negotiations moving again, the official said.

An Israeli official, also speaking on condition of anonymity for the same reason, said Israel was sticking to its line on Hamas, and refused to comment on the settlement issue.

Netanyahu has ruled out a return to the 1967 lines and repeatedly said he believes Israel must keep east Jerusalem, home to sensitive religious sites, and broad swaths of the West Bank both for security reasons and to accommodate major settlements.

On Thursday, he repeated his demand that the Palestinians accept the existence of a Jewish state as the homeland of the Jewish people.

Last year's construction slowdown applied only to the West Bank and not to east Jerusalem, though in practice, building in east Jerusalem came to a halt.

Frustrated over the impasse with Israel, Abbas last month agreed to reconcile with Hamas and form a joint, caretaker government to prepare for new elections.

The Palestinians have been split between rival governments since Hamas defeated Abbas' forces and seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007, leaving Abbas' Palestinian Authority in control only of the West Bank.

Initially welcomed by both sides, the reconciliation process has quickly run into trouble. Abbas wants to retain his current prime minister, Salam Fayyad, believing he is necessary to maintaining the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars in Western aid to the Palestinians. Hamas believes that Fayyad, a U.S.-educated economist, is too close to the West.

Other difficult issues loom in the future, most critically the reform of rival security forces. Hamas says it will never disband its militia in Gaza, a well-trained force of tens of thousands of men who possess rockets, anti-tank missiles and powerful explosives.

For now, both sides say they remain committed to forming the unity government. But the signs of trouble are clear. Early this week, Abbas called off a summit with Hamas' top leader, Khaled Mashaal, at short notice.

Adding to Abbas' troubles is the growing belief that the Palestinian plan to seek U.N. recognition of their independence will bring limited success at best.

The U.S. has already indicated it would veto any resolution that comes before the Security Council, the powerful body that must approve membership. That would force the Palestinians to turn to the General Assembly, where any vote would be nonbinding and amount to little more than a symbolic victory.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat insisted the Palestinians have not changed their positions. He said they remained committed to reconciliation, the U.N. vote, and a full settlement freeze, though he said negotiations are still their preference.

"The Palestinian position is known and clear. We want the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to accept the borders of 1967 as a basis for the two-state solution, and to stop all settlement activities in the Palestinian territories, especially in Jerusalem," he said.

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Palestinians: Talks with Israel won't stop UN bid (AP)

UNITED NATIONS – The Palestinians will seek membership as an independent state at the U.N. in September even if peace negotiations with Israel are underway, the Palestinian U.N. envoy said Thursday.

Riyad Mansour said the Palestinians are working on three separate tracks — restarting negotiations, completing the institutions for an independent state and gaining additional recognition for a Palestinian state.

"If we succeed in opening the door for negotiations, we're not going to stop from attaining what belongs to us as Palestinians in this General Assembly starting on Sept. 20," Mansour told reporters after the Security Council's monthly meeting on the Mideast. "Whether we succeed in the negotiations or we don't, the other two tracks are continuing."

Mansour dismissed speculation that the Palestinians would decide against taking action to promote an independent Palestinian state and U.N. membership at the annual gathering of world leaders and ministers at the General Assembly.

Some Palestinians have said privately that the project is problematic and promises a messy and unclear outcome that could change little on the ground — and might backfire politically or even spark new violence if Palestinians emerge disappointed with the result.

U.N. membership requires a recommendation from the Security Council — which means no veto by the United States, Israel's closest ally — and approval by two-thirds of the General Assembly, or 128 countries. The U.S. has repeatedly said there should be a negotiated peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians before Palestine becomes a U.N. member state.

Earlier this month, U.S. officials told a visiting Palestinian delegation that seeking U.N. recognition in the absence of a peace deal was a "nonstarter" — the latest indication that the U.S. would veto a resolution at the Security Council.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Ron Prosor told reporters that "doing anything unilateral would not be constructive."

The Palestinians insist they will not resume peace talks until Israel stops building settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — lands it captured in the 1967 Middle East war and which the Palestinians want for their future state. Israel maintains that the Palestinians should not set conditions for talks and that settlements didn't stop them negotiating in the past.

Mansour criticized Israel for refusing to halt settlement building and agree to resume negotiations based on 1967 borders, with agreed land swaps, as U.S. President Barack Obama has endorsed.

Israel's Prosor said "I think both sides are working together now to find ways to go into direct negotiations."

"I know that unilateral steps don't bring anything constructive, but on the contrary," he said, "so we all should try and work as much as we can with the time that we have in order to set down with the difficult issues that we still have to address."

Mansour wouldn't say exactly what the Palestinians will do at the U.N. in September. Asked when the Palestinians would submit an application for U.N. membership to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, he replied: "When we are ready."

He predicted that more than two-thirds of the 192 U.N. member states would recognize an independent Palestinian state before September, up from "around 120" countries at present.

"Then, we want to know if there is a position in the Security Council of depriving us of our natural right and legal right to join the community of nations as a state," he said. "What would be the argument if more than two-thirds of nations are supporting us in that endeavor?"

Mansour said he believes this year the Palestinians are facing "a historic moment" because the international community "is sick and tired of the continuation of this conflict."

"No one can stop the wheel of history that is rotating," he said. "They want to see it ending — and it has to be ending on the basis of an independent Palestinian state on the borders of 1967 with east Jerusalem as its capital."

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