Israel is waging war against everything Palestinian in Jerusalem. It is targeting cultural centers, commercial activity, and neighborhoods. It is persecuting leaders and targeting youths through arbitrary arrests, daily raids and other crimes such as home demolitions and evictions, ID revocation and forced transfer, today said Hanan Ashrawi, member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Ashrawi condemned in a statement on behalf of the Palestinian leadership what she called the “illegal abduction” of Jerusalem’s Palestinian Authority Governor Adnan Ghaith, who was detained by Israeli police earlier today at his Jerusalem home.
“This is the second time in less than a month that Israeli occupation forces target this senior official as part of its wider and systematic campaign to terrorize and provoke the residents of occupied Jerusalem, especially Issawiyeh (an East Jerusalem neighborhood), which has seen 450 of its residents detained in the past four months,” said Ashrawi. “Governor Ghaith’s detention is an act of political persecution. It is an illegal abduction that must be roundly and firmly condemned by all concerned parties.”
The PLO official added, “Israel is intentionally provoking Palestinian national and religious sentiments through a myriad of illegal actions and policies, including its determined efforts to change the demographic and cultural composition of Jerusalem and its declared reckless intention to change the historical status quo in Jerusalem’s holy sites, particularly the Holy Aqsa Compound. All these actions and policies are flagrant violations of international law and relevant UN Security Council resolutions, which affirm the illegality of Israel’s presence in occupied East Jerusalem and warn against any unilateral change in the City by the occupying power.”
She said, “The international community has a responsibility to put an end to this Israeli agenda of religious and political extremism because it is primarily unjust, illegal and oppressive as well as a threat to the fragile stability of the region.”
Ashrawi called “on all relevant and responsible international actors to intervene immediately and put an end to Israel’s lawless behavior in occupied Jerusalem and elsewhere in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in order to avoid further destabilization and protect the status and future of Jerusalem.”
