The Ad-Dameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association strongly denounced the new Israel attack, carried out Tuesday, against the Bab Al-Shams Palestinian village, for the second time, and said that Israeli soldiers fired gas bombs, rubber-coated metal bullets and gas bombs to disperse nonviolent activists.The Ad-Dameer reported that Israeli soldiers violently attack and struck nonviolent peace activists in the tent village, and kidnapped twenty under the pretext that “they violated a military order” as the army declared E1 area (where Israel intends to build thousands of units for Jewish settlers on Palestinian lands) as a “closed military zone”.
The association said that Israel’s illegal settlement projects are racist and very dangerous projects meant to “ethnically cleanse the Palestinian from their lands”.
It added that the establishment of Bab Al-Shams village is an implementation of the Palestinian right to self-determination guaranteed by the first article of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (December 16, 1966).
It further stated that Israeli settlements, all settlements regarding of what Israel describes them as and what names it gives them, are serious violations of Article #49 of the Four Geneva Convention that states that an occupying state cannot move part of its civilian population into territories it occupies. Settlements are also considered war crimes under Article 8 of the Rome Statute section 2/B/8.
On Wednesday at noon, the Ofer Israeli Military Court in the occupied West Bank, held a session for the 18 detainees who returned to the Bab Al-Shams village on Tuesday, and tried to reinstall the tents affirming the Palestinian right to the land.
The Israeli military claims that the nonviolent activists “violated a military ruling that declared the hills of occupied Jerusalem as a closed military zone”, off-limits to the Palestinians.
The Israeli Police and the military demanded the court to oblige the detainees to sign affidavits vowing that they will not return to the area for 180 consecutive days.
Two of the detainees were tried at the Jerusalem District Court in occupied Jerusalem as they are bearers of Jerusalem identity cards.
The Ad-Dameer stated that the Ofer Court decided to release the 18 detainees, ordering 15 of them to pay a 1000 New Israeli Shekels fine, while the remaining three were released on their own recognizance.
The 18 activists will not be allowed to enter Bab Al-Shams, and the entire area that was declared as a closed military zone, until February 13, 2013.
The Ad-Dameer said that demolishing Bab Al-Shams and the kidnapping of the nonviolent activists, is a direct proof that Israel’s arrest policies target the very basic and internationally-guaranteed rights of the Palestinian people, topped by their right to self-determination and their very existence on their own land.
It added that the arbitrary Israeli policies of arresting nonviolent activists, and the ongoing attacks against the Palestinian people, will never be able to break the Palestinian will and determination to remain steadfast until full liberation and independence.
Ad-Dameer called on the United Nations, and its secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, to act on maintaining and preserving the Palestinian rights, and to help the Palestinians in achieving their rights guaranteed by all international treaties.
