Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly adopts resolution slamming Israel for humanitarian crisis in blockaded Palestinian enclave
A European inter-governmental group accused Israel of engaging in “apparently systematic unlawful killings” of Palestinian civilians in the buffer zone areas between the Gaza Strip and Israel over the past several years, and of exacerbating a humanitarian crisis in the blockaded Palestinian enclave.
The Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, also known as PACE, voted on Tuesday in favor of a resolution, based on an internal report on the humanitarian situation in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian enclave, which charges Israel with “excessive and intentional force without justification against Palestinian civilians in the buffer zone, including against farmers, journalists, medical crews and peaceful protesters, [which] runs blatantly counter to human rights principles and the international law-enforcement standards.”
“Cases of the deliberate fatal shooting of individuals who posed no imminent danger to life amounts to an appalling pattern of apparently systematic unlawful killings,” read the report, which was composed by Eva-Lena Jansson, a Swedish politician from the Swedish Social Democratic Party, and presented on January 4 to the assembly, made up of 324 parliamentarians from 47 countries.
The report cites a Palestinian NGO which is said to have “documented the killing of 136 Palestinians in Gaza by Israeli live fire in the buffer zone, including 20 children,” since 2010.
Israeli troops often clash with Palestinian protesters and rioters who hurl rocks at soldiers or cross into the buffer zone and try to cut or otherwise inflict damage on the security fence. Soldiers stationed across the fence also sometimes come under fire from inside Gazan territory.
While troops have used live fire under certain circumstances, there has never been any documentation of “systematic killings” of Gazans in the buffer zone.
The non-binding and non-enforceable resolution, based on the report, was passed Tuesday with a vote of 46 in favor, 12 against and two abstentions in the assembly during a session in Strasbourg, France.
Representatives from Israel, Yesh Atid MK Aliza Lavie and Kulanu MK Eli Alalouf, tried to delay the vote in the assembly, according to a report in Ynet, but to no avail.
The PACE report also accuses Israel of “a massive and exceptional escalation in…attacks and harassment of Palestinian fishermen, including use of live fire,” and charges that Gazan fishermen “are now reduced to severe poverty and unemployment as a direct result of Israel’s policies and practices against them.”
The report also alleges that since the summer war of 2014, fought between Israel, Hamas and other Gaza-based terror groups in and around the Gaza Strip, in which a “huge number of people [were] killed” and in which “the destruction of civil infrastructure…was enormous,” the situation in Gaza became so dire that “many people preferred to flee Gaza and join the masses of refugees going to Europe.”
“It is estimated that over 12,620 houses were totally destroyed [in Gaza] and 6,455 severely damaged. 17,650 families or about 100,000 persons were displaced,” the report said.
The resolution calls for an end to the blockade imposed by Israel and by Egypt on the Gaza Strip, warns of a humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave if regular access to humanitarian goods, water and electricity is not granted, and urges Israel and the Palestinian Authority to support any official investigation by the International Criminal Court into the 2014 Gaza war and its aftermath.
The resolution also called on Israel to “refrain from the use of force without justification against Palestinian civilians in the buffer and fishing zones” and on Palestinians to “reject and condemn acts of terrorism against Israel” and “form an effective and cohesive government, bridging the two territories.”
Lavie spoke before the assembly, calling the resolution a “distorted and a selective representation of reality,” and criticized the report for bring “based on rumors and not on facts.”
“We withdrew our citizens and even our dead from Gaza in 2005, in exchange we got rocket attacks. Israel supplies a third of Gaza’s electricity needs at a cost of a billion dollars, over 130,000 Palestinians received free medical care in Israel last year, including relatives of [former Hamas prime minister] Ismail Haniyeh, and we are accused of [contributing to a] humanitarian crisis?” railed Lavie, who also confronted Jansson, according to Ynet.
Israel withdrew its civilians and military personnel from the Gaza Strip in 2005 in a unilateral move. Two years later, Hamas overthrew Fatah in a violent coup in the Strip, resulting in an Israeli and Egyptian blockade designed to prevent Hamas, sworn to Israel’s destruction, from smuggling in weapons and materiel. Since then, Israel and Hamas have fought three wars which have severely harmed Gaza’s infrastructure and reconstruction efforts have been slow.
The last round of violence, in 2014, claimed more than 2,000 Palestinian lives, according to UN figures, and 73 Israeli lives including 66 soldiers. Israel has said that up to half of those killed on the Palestinian side were combatants, and has blamed the civilian death toll on Hamas for deliberating placing rocket launchers, tunnels and other military installations among civilians. The war, also known as Operation Protective Edge, erupted in July that year, after a month of escalating tensions triggered by the abduction and killing of three Israeli teens by Hamas in the West Bank, and an Israeli arrest sweep of Hamas supporters that led to renewed Gaza rocket fire on Israel.
@ keelie:
Israel could even turn a blind eye to criminals smuggling gazans from the Israeli coast just north of the gaza strip also… perhaps israel could even break even and make money. Turning a blind eye is what the crooked euroscum do every day they fund the muslims to kill the Jews. One needs no agreements… and there is no reason to stop until the euros stop stalking the Jews. Even Hamas can make money, the smugglers in gaza probably pay hamas to turn a blind eye… same with sinai beaches. I havent even started to look at northern routes through lebanon and turkey by boat and land. criminals have proven very successful so far in flooding europe from all directions. No need to ask the euros for permission… because Israel can say….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PibDMGxiyJw
keelie Said:
I was actually thinking that Israel covertly work with the east euro mafias to expand on the current smuggling networks.. from gaza e.g. they pay to leave for europe quite a bitlike 10k but a lot less than the 100k bandied about by the pay them to leave crowd … although I dont agree with paying them to leave i would invest in them leaving for europe to cause them trouble… subsidizing them to leave by setting up more smugglers and subsidizing existing smugglers would reduce their cost to lets say 5k or less…. coupled with the pressures and poverty they would jump at it…. 50% of pals in gaza want to go to europe…. a win win for all… except the euros.
@ bernard ross:
Excellent idea!!! Force the “palestinians” to become “refugees” and have them beg the Europeans to take them in. If the latter refuse, then they are openly hypocritical, and if they agree… well you know…
Why should they have to pose an “imminent threat to life” to be liquidated? These are all terrorist acts of war. These so-called “civilians” don’t even qualify as collateral damage. We should cut them some slack when they try to kill us if they fail or are simply outmatched? Hardly.
Also, as Bernard and Yamit said, who the hell are Europeans to be judging Jews, anyway?
I suggest to invite these European elitists to spend their vacation this year (at least 3 weeks) in Sderot.
If they are still of the same opinion, they can spend the following 3 weeks in the Gaza strip.
I hope they enjoy themselves in Sderot. Not sure how much they’ll enjoy their stay in Gaza, but Arab hospitality is well known.
Perhaps Trump can force some rationality in the brain of these antisemitic imbeciles! These morons are substituting Hamas with Israel.
Israel needs to recognize that their most real and dangerous existential enemy is the euros. Without their perpetual encouragement, facilitation, organizing and funding of anti Jewish entities coupled with their endless lying… the muslims would not be a problem…Israel would have long ago brought that war to a finality. The Jews dont see how the euros have never changed… they operate now behind a public mask but behind all the attacks and damage to Jews and Israel lies the euros. Their churches and gov are institutionally involved and the churches influence the gov policies. The churches and the govs are allied with the muslims and the left against the jews. The churches make hundreds of millions from resettling muslims in the west and the churches, govs and left all support the muslim invasion of europe. Therefore, in the same way that I always said here for years that the chaos of arab spring was good for Israel I beleive the same of chaos in europe, for the same reasons…. chaos and suffering in the lands of the enemies reduces their ability to stalk and kill Jews. Hence the maintenance of war and chaos in the lands of the enemies is a good thing.
Israel and all the foreign paid Israeli moles fronting for the euroscum should stop whining to the euros, begging them for their ear…. instead reject everything in their resolution and warn the gazans and the euros that gaza must immediately dismantle all their weapons and ship them out and hamas must surrender to Israel or leave gaza immediately…. that no humanitarian aid is allowed to those who teach their filthy spawn that jews are sons of apes and pigs. Stop whining and begging… either rebut or reject … whining and begging encourages the euros with their game of stalking Jews.
More pertinently send a bill to PACE for the Arabs’ “systematic and unlawful” killings of Jewish civilians killed in ex-Palestine Mandate or Israel by Arabs of all stripes since the 1920 riots inclusive.
This tots up APPROX 4000 as: 200 for 1929; 450 for 1936 – 38; for 1920 and 1921 at least 100; and for 1948 +/- 2000; and 500 for 1949 – 56; a 100 and a 1000 for first and 2nd Intifadas; besides the 100 for the knife intifada since 2015. Total Jews killed by Arabs since 1860 = 24 000.
drive the gazans to the boats to leave for europe… let europe send a flotilla to pick them up. there should be not one drop of breath or life for those who teach their children that Jews are sons of apes and pigs.
the euro stalking of jews must be stopped even if it means the destruction of europe… send them muslim terrorists from their beloved palestine.
this is the new trick for the euros to give them a makeover to push them on the Jews. Its time for Israel to completely reject all these games and the euro scum who facilitate, encourage, organize and fund the jew killers. Feed the euros to the muslims and russia Israel should facilitate everything that bring chaos suffering and misery to their enemies in the ME and EU
The European council of What ? Jew haters ? 1 million killed in Syria,17 full scale civil wars in Arab countries today Murdering .Dictatorships in Venezuela, Ecuador,Nicaragua,Cuba and half the countries in Africa.In Malmo Sweden 25 years of a Jew Hating left wing mayor has left the city with Muslim majority and the highest murder and unemployment rate in Europe .And all the bankrupt EU does is day after day is condemning Israel , How pathetic