Khaled Mishaal (Hamas): NYT article misquoted him, Hamas will not change its charter calling for destruction of Israel

Tue May 5, 9:55 AM ET Mishaal: We don’t change our charter to meet the wishes of others

[ 05/05/2009 - 05:02 PM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)– Khaled Mishaal, the political bureau chairman of Hamas, has denied that his Movement was about to change its charter or stop its resistance against occupation stressing that resistance was a legitimate right for any people under occupation. Mishaal, in a press release on Tuesday, said that the New York Times did not quote him correctly and what was attributed to him was “erroneous”. He said that the position regarding firing or halting rockets was determined according to the resistance’s strategy. The Hamas leader stressed that the Palestinian people were entitled to resisting occupation and would continue to expose the “Zionist entity” in its capacity as the party that always starts the aggression. He explained that the resistance missiles are only in self defense and in retaliation to incessant Zionist attacks. He also underlined that Hamas always takes into consideration the Palestinian people’s circumstances. Regarding the question by the American paper on Hamas’s charter, he said that Hamas was not like others who change their charters to meet the demands of other parties. “This principle is not acceptable,” he said, pointing out that the others who changed their charter did not gain anything in return. Mishaal said that the West should focus on the Israeli occupation’s murder, destruction and violations of all values, rights and doctrines rather than concentrate on a phrase in a charter. The West should rather view what Hamas offered along with other factions as a national consensus to support the just Palestine cause and to preserve constants and rights, he elaborated.

Spanish Judge to move forward on Israeli war crimes probe for 2002 Gaza bomb blast that killed 15 people, 7 Israelis to be charged

Spanish judge presses on with Israeli war crime probe

[ 05/05/2009 - 08:43 AM ]

MADRID, (PIC)– The Spanish judge Fernando Andreu on Monday declared that he would press ahead with investigating Israeli crimes against humanity committed in the aerial bombardment of a Gaza building in 2002. Legal sources said that Andreu of Spain’s National Court refused prosecutors’ argument that the court lacked the jurisdiction to probe the file. The judge asserted that his court was authorized to probe the charge filed by the Palestinian center for human rights in Gaza after failure of the Israeli judiciary to prosecute those who committed war crimes against Palestinians. The case involves the Israeli air force’s shelling of a building in Gaza on 22/7/2002 that killed the commander of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, Sheikh Salah Shehade along with 14 civilians mostly children. The Israeli air force dropped a one ton bomb on the house in the Daraj neighborhood in Gaza city. The charge was made against seven Israeli officials topped by the then war minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer, chief of staff Moshe Ya’lon, and air force commander Dan Halutz.

Qassam Brigades negotiating to swap Gilad Shalit for Ahmed Saadat, others

Qassam Brigades: No swap deal not including senior prisoners

[ 15/02/2009 - 08:23 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)– The armed wing of the Hamas Movement, the Qassam Brigades, has expressed absolute rejection of any prisoners’ swap deal with the Israeli occupation authority that does not include senior Palestinian resistance captives. Abu Obeida, the QB spokesman, said in a press statement published by Palestine Today website on Sunday that if the IOA was really interested in concluding the exchange deal it should release “all those included on the list we have tabled”. He would not go into details of the negotiations on the deal, stressing that the four senior leaders Ahmed Saadat, PFLP secretary general, and the commanders in the QB Abdullah Al-Barghouthi, Ibrahim Hamed and Abbas Al-Sayyed, should be included in the deal. The QB spokesman also rejected attempts to link the deal to any other file such as calm or opening of crossings, stressing that the exchange deal is a separate issue. The Israeli minister of internal security, Avi Dichter, had said that his government would release a big number of Palestinian prisoners in return for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held by Palestinian resistance, but underlined that if those four mentioned above persons were released the IOA would not allow their return to their homeland. Press reports had earlier suggested that the IOA was refusing the release of those four in particular. For his part, Dr. Ismail Radwan, one of Hamas’s political leaders in Gaza, said that Israeli premier Ehud Olmert’s statement that no calm agreement would be signed without releasing Shalit was political maneuvering. He explained that Olmert wanted to make a kind of achievement before he leaves office along with his scandals. Hamas does not mind expediting the exchange deal if the IOA agreed to the conditions, Barhoum said.

Palestinian minister for religious affairs Dr. Taleb Abu Shaar briefs delegates from Jordan, Bahrain, and Turkey on the extent of the destruction of Mosques in Gaza during the recent Israeli offensive

Shaar briefs Arab and Turkish delegations on size of damage inflicted on mosques

[ 04/02/2009 - 11:56 AM ]   Wed Feb 4, 3:16 PM ET Palestinians are silhouetted in front of a mosque, devastated in Israel’s latest incursion into Gaza, in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2009. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad says his cash-strapped government will donate USD 600 million (euro 468 million) to help residents of the Gaza Strip rebuild homes shattered in Israel’s offensive.(AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

GAZA, (PIC)– Dr. Taleb Abu Shaar, the Palestinian minister of the religious affairs, met with delegations from Turkey, Bahrain and Jordan and briefed them on the size of the destruction inflicted on houses of worship during the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip. Dr. Abu Shaar told the delegations that Israel had waged a genocidal war on Gaza during which it used internationally prohibited weapons against humans, trees and stones. The minister explained that Israel destroyed completely 45 mosques and partially 55 others, not to mention dozens of mosques which sustained different levels of damage, adding that five cemeteries were also bombed during the war. He refuted Israel’s lies which said that Gaza mosques were used to store weapons and ammunition, saying that Israel did not come with any evidence proving its allegations and used such lies just to justify the bombing of mosques. Dr. Abu Shaar stressed the need for forming an international committee to investigate the Israeli aggression on mosques and houses of worship and to prosecute the soldiers and officers or anyone responsible for committing those war crimes. The minister launched an appeal, during his meeting with the visiting delegations, to the charities in the Islamic world to initiate fund-raising campaigns for the reconstruction of destroyed mosques in cooperation with the ministry of religious affairs in Gaza.

Palestinian Authority (PA) ministry fro prisoner affairs claims Israel poisons detainees, demands WHO inquiry

Ashkar accuses Israel of giving poisonous medicine to Palestinian captives

[ 04/02/2009 - 06:48 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)– The spokesman of the PA prisoners and ex-prisoners’ affairs ministry Riyadh Al-Ashkar on Wednesday accused the Israeli prisons authority (IPA) of deliberately injecting sick Palestinian prisoners with infected needles, and of giving them poisonous medicines. According to Ashkar, “reliable” information from Palestinian captives (a number of them are medics and aware of the kind of medicine given to them) treated in the Ramle prison hospital affirmed that the IPA was injecting Palestinian patients with needles infected with serious viruses like hepatitis. In this regard, Ashkar called on the World Health Organization (WHO) and other medical groups to immediately conduct thorough investigation of the matter. Few years ago, the head of medicine section in the Israeli health ministry revealed that her government used Palestinian captives in Israeli jails as guinea pigs to test new Israeli medicines. Ashkar cited a number of cases of those Palestinian patients, including prisoner Othman Abu Kharaj, 38, of Jenin city who was injected with a hepatitis-infected needles, among other cases. Around 11,000 Palestinian citizens are still detained in Israeli jails; at least 1,500 of them are suffering of chronic diseases, according to Palestinian records.

PIC: Hamas categorically denies that it stole aid from UNRWA, resources placed into Hamas police custody because they were being diverted to civilian members of Fatah, not the needy, Hamas demands apology

Haneyya gov’t denies UNRWA allegations of seizing relief aid from its depots

[ 04/02/2009 - 06:55 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)– The Palestinian government headed by premier Ismail Haneyya on Wednesday categorically denied the UNRWA accusations that the police in Gaza seized relief aid from its warehouses and called on the UN agency to apologize immediately for spreading false news. For its part, the interior ministry said, in a statement received by the PIC, that the UNRWA allegations is baseless and unacceptable, stressing that the agency’s role is limited to distribution of relief aid to “Palestinian refugees” and not to civil institutions because this act is against the law. The PIC reporter was informed that amounts of relief aid in a storage depot belonging to a Fatah-affiliated society were held in police custody after learning that this society was distributing the aid to Fatah members only and not to the needy.   Informed sources said that UNRWA was distributing part of the humanitarian aid granted to the Palestinian people to a society belonging to the Fatah faction, which in turn distributed them to Fatah members prompting police action.

Egypt bombs Gaza tunnels, halts fuel supply, installs surveillance cameras, seeks to destroy all tunnels and seal Gaza by Thursday

Egypt detonates tunnels, installs surveillance cameras along borders with Gaza

[ 03/02/2009 - 10:27 PM ]

RAFAH, (PIC)– The Egyptian government destroyed more tunnels along its borders with the tiny Gaza Strip that were used by Gazans to bring food and basic needs into their besieged Strip, Palestinian sources and eyewitnesses confirmed. The Israeli occupation government destroyed nearly one-half of the tunnels along the Gaza-Egypt border during its brutal war on Gaza last month, the sources added. The Egyptian government also halted fuel supply to Gaza Strip, which aggravated the suffering of the Palestinian people there, especially that no fuel is being supplied to Gaza from the Israeli side. Sensor cameras were also installed by the Egyptian security forces on top of high building to monitor the borders with help from American, German, and French experts with the aim to uncover and destroy all the tunnels. Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni, and her former US counterpart Condoleezza Rice signed an agreement to block smuggling of weapons to the Palestinian people in Gaza who are under the Israeli occupation. The French government also sent a frigate to block the sea of Gaza. In the same context, the Egyptian Al-Ahram news paper quoted “responsible” Egyptian source as asserting that the Egyptian government has decided to seal off the Rafah crossing point by this Thursday, and that it would open the gate for humanitarian reasons on the time Egypt deems suitable. The Egyptian decision comes amidst growing public demand in the Arab, Muslim, and international communities to lift the unjust economic siege on the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza Strip, especially after the devastating war unleashed by the Israeli occupation government on the tiny Strip, which left more than 7000 Palestinian victims and displaced tens of thousands of families.

PFLP and Sa’ika organization call for rebuilding PLO on the basis of 2005 Cairo Agreement and 2006 Letter of National Reconciliation

Popular front and Sa’ika faction call for rebuilding PLO

[ 03/02/2009 - 09:02 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)– The popular front for the liberation of Palestine and the Sa’ika organization on Monday called for rebuilding the PLO on the basis of the Cairo agreement in 2005 and the document of national reconciliation in 2006. In a statement received by the PIC, Abdelrahim Mallouh, the deputy secretary-general of the popular front, called on all Palestinian factions to work together and initiate directly comprehensive dialog in order to end the Palestinian differences and rebuild the PLO. For its part, the Sa’ika organization said that it always stresses the need for electing a new national council, electing a national authority to rehabilitate the PLO and its institutions, and involving all factions without exception in the PLO. Sa’ika also highlighted the need to separate the position of the Palestinian authority from the presidency of the PLO because the PA’s work is concentrated in civil affairs, adding that it does not want a national council which had voted to cancel the national charter of the PLO in Gaza in the presence of former US president Bill Clinton. Sa’ika also said that it wants a strong PLO representing the Palestinian people at home and abroad as well as Palestinian leadership believing in the armed struggle and resistance, not a PLO headed by a yielding PA chief and weak leadership Khaled Mashaal, the head of the Hamas political bureau, had said during a ceremony held last week in Doha that the PLO in its current situation does not represent all Palestinians and called for building a new national authority of all national forces and trends representing all Palestinians at home and abroad.

Muslim and Christian scholars speak out against Jerusalem excavations and occupation of Palestinian land

Muslims, Christians in Jerusalem united against the Israeli excavations

[ 03/02/2009 - 04:20 PM ]

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– Palestinian Muslim and Christian figures have highlighted the importance of the Palestinian unity in protecting occupied Jerusalem from the intensified Israeli practices to judaize the city. Dr. Ekrema Sabri, the chairman of the higher Islamic authority in Jerusalem, who was present at the conference, highlighted the dangers that engulf the occupied city and the holy Aqsa Mosque as a result of the Israeli hostile practices and excavations in the city. He pointed to the collapse of a classroom in an UNRWA-run school in the Selwan suburb, which is close to the walls of the Mosque. Patriarch Michael Sabbah, of the Latin Christian Church, stressed that the Palestinian people have clear legal rights in Jerusalem that the entire world is aware of. “Simply speaking, we want our land that was occupied in 1967 to be returned to us to establish our independent state with Jerusalem as its capital”, asserted Sabbah, adding that Palestinian unity would play strong and crucial role in achieving this goal. Adnan Al-Husseini, the city’s governor, blamed the UNESCO for its “feeble” action in protecting the city’s heritage against the Israeli deliberate distortion. For his part, the prominent Palestinian Christian leader archimandrite Atallah Hanna, of the Orthodox Church, underscored that the Israeli war on Gaza was a big conspiracy that is not limited to destroy Gaza and Hamas Movement, but, he added, the brutal war was targeting the entire Palestinian people regardless of their political or religious affiliations. The archimandrite, furthermore, deprecated those who applauded  Israeli president Shimon Peres during the Davos forum, stressing that those who applaud criminals are also partners in the crime. The prominent Muslim leader in the 1948-occupied Palestinian lands Sheikh Raed Salah concluded the conference by exhibiting pictures exposing the Israeli conspiracy to demolish the Aqsa Mosque, warning that the Israeli excavations under the Mosque reached alarming levels. He suggested the establishment of an Islamic fund to support the Palestinian Jerusalemites, and the Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem.

Palestinian Interior Ministry in Gaza arrests alleged spy ring

Interior ministry announces arrest of spy ring

[ 03/02/2009 - 07:31 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)– The Palestinian interior ministry in Gaza reported Tuesday that the security apparatuses arrested several groups on a charge of providing Israel with information about the Palestinian resistance. Ihab Al-Ghussein, the spokesman for the interior ministry, said that the security apparatuses were able to arrest a spy ring spearheaded by Mohamed Al-Habbash, a nephew of the minister of social affairs in the PA unconstitutional Ramallah government, which collected information about the resistance a few days before the Israeli war started on Gaza. Ghussein added that the mission of this spy ring was to gather information on the whereabouts of the resistance fighters and then send it to PA officers in Ramallah who in turn hand over the information to Israel. He also pointed out that the security apparatuses are still in pursuit of other groups who fled during the war, noting that all the spies will be brought to justice as soon as possible. The arrest of the spy ring came days after information leaked from the Israeli intelligence had said that Israel lost contact with some of its Fatah-affiliated spies during the war on Gaza. The PLC committee of interior and security stated Tuesday that the Palestinian resistance which handled the file of spies during the Israeli war on Gaza had submitted and referred this file to the interior ministry in order to assume its role in punishing the transgressors. Ismail Al-Ashqar, the rapporteur of the PLC security committee, underlined that during the 23-day Israeli aggression on Gaza, the fifth column and a group of collaborators had a very big role in informing the IOF troops about the resistance, their homes, governmental facilities and many other targets.  Ashqar added that the security committee received confirmed information that Israel’s security coordination with the PA security apparatuses in the West Bank played a major role in guiding the IOF troops during the war. As for why the Palestinian government in Gaza let the resistance handle the file of spies, the rapporteur explained that during the war, the country was in a state of emergency, where there was an all-out war which destroyed all the security and governmental institutions and centers including prisons, so the Palestinian resistance was at that time entitled to take decisions regarding this file.

58 Yemeni MPs sign memo asking government to sever ties with Mahmoud Abbas

Yemeni parliament asks government not to receive Abbas

[ 01/02/2009 - 01:04 PM ]

SANA’A, (PIC)– Yemeni parliament members have tabled a memo with the government asking it not to receive the former PA chief Mahmoud Abbas in Sana’a since his term in office has expired and for siding against resistance in the Israeli aggression on Gaza. The memo, signed by 58 MPs, said that the Yemeni government should not deal with anyone who opposed resistance especially during the latest war on Gaza because they violated all heavenly and earthly rules that allowed any people under occupation to resist that occupation. The deputies also asked the government not to hand the assistance allocated for Gaza reconstruction to Abbas because his tenure had expired. MP Dr. Saleh Al-Sanabani said that Abbas’s term as president has ended and he was not fit to speak on behalf of the Palestinians or to represent them because he “sold the Palestine cause and conspired against resistance before the very eyes of the entire world”. He stressed that the assistance should be delivered to resistance leaders and to the government of Ismail Haneyya in Gaza. He proposed the formation of a parliamentary committee that would go to Gaza and help the Palestinian citizens there to overcome their ordeal.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement rejects PLO calls for new national body to represent the Palestinian people

Jihad: Palestinian-Arab veto barring the restructuring of PLO

[ 01/02/2009 - 06:20 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)– The Islamic Jihad Movement has said that a Palestinian-Arab veto was barring the restructuring of the PLO to serve as a framework grouping all Palestinian factions and forces. The Movement in a press release on Sunday said that the PLO was totally absented from the Palestinian political scene, and called for establishing a new representative body that would start with resistance forces and all those believing in the resistance option. It said that whoever believes that such a call was threatening the PLO then let him open all its files and re-build it on the basis of the Cairo agreement signed by all Palestinian factions in May 2005. Hamas supreme leader Khaled Mishaal said in a speech in Doha a few days ago that resistance factions were considering  forming a new national body that would represent the Palestinian people within and outside Palestine.

French lawyer has identified the names of Israeli officers involved in Gaza war crimes in preparation to file war crimes charges at the ICC

French expert: We identified names of Israeli officers involved in Gaza massacre

[ 01/02/2009 - 08:12 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)– The French legal expert in international law and coordinator of the international alliance for prosecution of Israeli war criminals Jill Difer has asserted that his group succeeded in identifying names of Israeli army officers involved in the war on Gaza in preparation to file lawsuits against them before international courts. However, Difer refused to disclose names of those officers “in order not to preempt the investigation”. In statements he made to Islam online website on the internet, Difer underlined that Israeli attempts to hide names of those officers failed because his group started collecting information and documenting data about those officers at the start of the war on Gaza, adding that the Israeli attempts “came in the wasted time”. He added that Israel should understand from now on that it is no longer free to commit war crimes without getting prosecuted. According to Difer, he and a number of his comrades in the group had met with general-prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Luis O’campo, and handed him complaints filed by more than 350 legal and human rights organizations against Israeli military leaders involved in the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, Difer opined that a number of obstacles could jeopardize the proceedings, including the fact that Israel wasn’t a signatory to the Rome Convention of the ICC, but he insisted that they will pursue the case to the end. He also ruled out the UN Security Council could enforce the investigation of those crimes, explaining that allies of Israel in the UNSC could veto any resolution in this regard. Finally, Difer disclosed that his group would file a case before the primary court in the Belgium capital Brussels to cancel the agreement of December 8, 2008 that raised level of the Israeli-EU relationship, which was sponsored by France.