MESHAAL: WORLD MUST RESPECT PALESTINIAN RECONCILIATION TALKS

Amman, 19 Rabiul Awal 1434/31 January 2013. (MINA) – Exiled Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal has said the world “must respect” Palestinian reconciliation talks, after meeting King Abdullah II in Jordan, a palace statement said.

“I am optimistic about the Palestinian reconciliation. The international community must respect Palestinian need to end division,” Meshaal was quoted as saying after meeting the king in Amman, according to a report published in www.arabnews.com monitored by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA), Thursday.

“We have made excellent steps in the reconciliation talks in Egypt,” he said of long-running talks between Hamas and the rival Fatah faction of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

Earlier this month, Meshaal and Abbas agreed in Cairo to expedite a stalled reconciliation deal between their groups.

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Meshaal and Abbas focused on implementing the Egypt-brokered April 2011 unity agreement aimed at ending years of infighting that was signed in May that year, but whose main provisions have yet to be put into practice.

The Zionists use deadly force against unarmed Palestinians

Meanwhile according to PressTV reports, Israel is breaking its own rules of engagement by using deadly force to disperse unarmed Palestinian protesters in the occupied West Bank, an Israeli rights group reported on Monday.

Israeli forces have killed 56 people since 2005 in clashes with rock-throwing Palestinians, said B’Tselem, which accused the military of having “extensively and systematically” breached rules barring deadly retaliation for non-lethal assault.

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An Israeli rights group has criticized Israel for the excessive use of force against unarmed Palestinian protesters in the occupied West Bank.

        The Human rights organization, B’Tselem, reiterated that at least 56 people have been killed in clashes between Israeli soldiers and rock-throwing Palestinians since 2005.
      “The Israeli military’s standing orders explicitly state that live ammunition may not be fired at stone-throwers,” it said, adding, however, that the Israeli military “extensively and systematically violated” rules.
      The Israeli military, however, rejected B’Tselem’s report, saying the report “presents a biased narrative, relying primarily on incidents that are either old or still under investigation by the Military Police.”

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B’Tselem’s report went on to say that, of the Palestinian fatalities since 2005, six were killed by rubber-coated metal bullets and two by teargas canisters, both supposedly non-lethal weapons which were however fired directly at the protesters.

“In practice, members of the security forces make almost routine use of these weapons in unlawful, dangerous ways, and the relevant Israeli authorities do too little to prevent the recurrence of this conduct,” the report said.
In the past two weeks alone, Israeli forces shot dead two Palestinians in the West Bank in protests, which Tel Aviv fears is the beginning of a third uprising, known as the intifada. (T/P-08/E1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)