ISRAELI SOLDIER KIDNAPPED HAMAS LEADER DAWN MORNING
Ahrar center for prisoners’ studies and human rights denounced the Israeli arrest of Hamas leader Hussam Harb, Palestinian Information Center reported as monitored by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).
Fuad Al-Khuffash, the director of Ahrar center, said that Harb, 55, is a liberated prisoner and is a well known figure in Salfit.
He said that Harb was only released from Israeli custody ten months ago after serving 30 months in administrative detention, without any trial or charge.
Khuffash said that Harb was routinely held in Israeli custody for no charge except their claim that he “poses danger on the region”.
Background of Israeli occupying in Palestine
- Israel invaded the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967 and has occupied it since. The occupation is illegal according to international law which also stipulates that it is illegal for Israel to build settlements and populate this occupied territory with its own civilian population.
- Since 1967, successive Israeli governments have followed a policy of settlement expansion as either a strategic and demographic security measure or as what they consider the natural fulfillment of the Zionist project.
- 121 settlements have been built in the West Bank and 12 in East Jerusalem. Additionally, there are over 100 unrecognized or unofficial settlements known as ‘outposts’. While all settlements are illegal under international law and have been condemned by numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions, ‘outposts’ are considered illegal even under Israeli law.
- Ma’ale Adumim is one of the largest settlements located in East Jerusalem as part of the urban belt created around the old city. Other large settlements are located in the West bank, particularly Hebron where a radical hard-line group of around 500 religious settlers live in the very heart of the Palestinian city.
- According to the Israeli Central Bureau of statistics, there were 444,339 settlers in the West Bank (including east Jerusalem) at the end of 2006. The current number is estimated to be 500,000. The Jewish rate of population growth in the settlements, which now stands at 5.8% per annum, is far higher than in Israel proper (1.8%), leading to a rapid rise in the settler population. (T/P03/P04)
Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)
