West Bank – Erekat: Benjamin Netanyahu To Be Held Responsible For Crimes Under New Open-Fire Rules

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    Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat (L) and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attend the Arab League Foreign Ministers emergency meeting held at the League's headquarters in Cairo January 15, 2015. REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El GhanyWest Bank – Secretary General of the PLO Saeb Erekat denounced on Saturday the new Israeli security cabinet decision to modify open-fire rules against Palestinian rioters in Jerusalem, holding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responsible “for the new crimes to be committed under this new regulation,” Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. 

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    On Thursday evening, the security cabinet approved a short menu of tougher steps against rock and firebomb-throwers including the easing of open-fire regulations.  

    One modified order allows security forces to shoot when the life of a third party is under threat. Until the change, Israeli soldiers facing violent Palestinian protests could open fire with live bullets only if their own life was in danger.

    “The Israeli government continues to incite against Palestinian lives, with a culture of hate that dehumanizes a whole nation. Israel continues to ignore and gravely break its obligations under international law,” said the statement.

    “The new decision expands the level under which Palestinian demonstrators’ lives can be directly targeted in a manner that allows the Israeli forces to shoot Palestinians ‘when the life of a third party’ is under threat.”

    “It leaves Israeli forces with the wide discretion to estimate situations of ‘threat’, which Erekat underlined was a “mere pretext to justify the escalating Israeli crimes against the people of Palestine.” 

    Erekat called upon the international community to take “effective and consequential measures in order to protect our people under occupation, and to end the Israeli government’s systematic oppressive policies and crimes committed against Palestinians on a daily basis.” The PLO Secretary General said that Palestine will report on the change to the new open-fire policy in Jerusalem to the relevant institutions including to the International Criminal Court. 

    The unanimous decision of the 10-member security cabinet on Thursday evening was taken after Netanyahu held a number of high-level consultations over the past month with security and legal officials looking for ways to combat the wave of violence in Jerusalem and rock and gasoline-bomb attacks on the roads to the capital and beyond the Green Line.


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    9 Comments
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    5TResident
    Noble Member
    5TResident
    8 years ago

    Blah blah blah. Same old Palestinian tripe. Always someone else’s fault, never their own. No wonder even their fellow Arabs don’t take them seriously.

    Teddybear
    Teddybear
    8 years ago

    Who should be held liable for the stone throwers?

    ayoyo
    ayoyo
    8 years ago

    The palestinian leaders are also war criminals and should be prosecuted .

    golani
    golani
    8 years ago

    Drop dead you murderers

    8 years ago

    Yes indeed it’s certainly “oppressive” of Israel to try to stop the rioters from injuring and killing Israeli citizens !

    Teddybear
    Teddybear
    8 years ago

    No Comment needed Erekat is a groise beheime

    Sherree
    Sherree
    8 years ago

    Who cares what he says? Honestly, no one. Last week he was encouraging even school children to go out to fight this holy war and get involved in the rock throwing and harassing of the Jews at the Al Aqsa Mosque. Now he calls Israel defending its people against these assaults criminals? What if there were a whole bunch of Israelis that came with truck loads of rocks throwing them on the Palestinians who were throwing rocks at the Jews? What then, who would be in the right and who would be in the wrong for doing the same thing? Enough already, stop treating Palestinians with kid gloves.

    8 years ago

    Shoot to kill. Simple. Let the Abbas and Erekat animals bark.

    ayoyo
    ayoyo
    8 years ago

    hundreds of thousands of their people are murdered and more b y their own kind,but nothing is said about that.