Israeli HR Groups Ask Court To Prevent Gaza Harm

Israeli Human Rights Groups Ask Court To Prevent Harm

International release, July 11, 2006

Tomorrow will appear in the Herald Tribune our call on the Middle East's neighbors, the European countries, to more seriously take up the task of putting down the fire next door. It was already sent to all the individual embassies, and you can (re)read it at out website

http://gush-shalom.org/

With a weak government unwilling to negotiate, nothing will improve unless the international community strenghtens the peace forces here. Another example: the following appeal to the Supreme Court by six Israeli human rights organizations:

Israeli human rights groups ask court to prevent harm to Gaza civilians

"Israel is required, both by international law and by Israeli law, to discern at all times between military and civilian targets, to avoid attacking obvious civilian targets such as power stations, and to participate actively in supplying the basic needs of the civilian population."

"Even if the damage to the civilian population serves some legitimate purpose," the petitioners wrote, "it doesn't pass the proportionality test, and thus it is also illegal."

Full text Hebrew: http://www.acri.org.il/hebrew-acri/engine/story.asp?id=1358
Full text English: http://www.acri.org.il/english-acri/engine/story.asp?id=322
Ha'aretz report http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/737264.html

With the Gaza drama daily destroying lives and dreams, and not to forget: livelihoods, meanwhile the routinely continuing strangling of the Palestinians in the West Bank doesn't get any attention at all. Saturday July 15, we will try our best in one of the many threatened places.

Here follows the alert which we sent earlier in Hebrew to activists

A call for Civil Disobedience in Izbet Tabib Qalqiliya region.

Izbet Tabib is a small village of 300 inhabitants near Qalqiliya. It was established in 1920 and in 1948 it received an influx of refugees from Tubsur, which stood where Ra'anana is now. The residents of the village are all recognized as refugees (by UNRWA) but the village is not recognized as a refugee camp. In fact, it is not recognized at all by the Israeli government which has issued demolition orders for most of the buildings in the village.

This small village has been assaulted by the Israeli occupation in ways which would have destroyed much larger communities. Much of its lands were taken by the wall, basic infrastructure such as a connection to the electric grid and permanent roofs for buildings is denied and most recently, the main exit from the village was blocked by an earth mound.

The mere existence of Izbet Tabib is a continuing act of resistance in the form of Tsumud. The village is now calling on Israelis to join it on Saturday July 15 th to demonstrate against the wall and the closure of the road and to continue the construction of the village's kindergarten in defiance of the building restrictions.

The coalition against the wall- Gush Shalom, Yesh Gvul, Taayush, Women's coalition for peace, Anarchists against the wall.

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