Israel is liable for war crimes over the prisoner issue now that the Palestinian Authority has ratified the four Geneva Conventions including those relating to prisoners of war, its officials charged on Thursday.
To mark Palestinian Prisoner Day they renewed their call on Israel to release all 5,300 security prisoners held in Israeli jails, noting that the 15 treaties and conventions they ratified earlier this month, including the Geneva Convention allows them to harness international law to support their cause.
Given that the “state of Palestine” has signed the four Geneva Conventions there is a “legal, humanitarian and moral duty to exert real pressure to stop aggression against the prisoners and to stop Israel from committing more war crimes,” said Wasel Abu Yusef of the PLO Executive Committee.
“According to international law these prisoners are fighting for the freedom of their people,” said Abu Yusef of the Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli jails.
The Prison Service said there were some 5,300 security prisoners currently incarcerated in Israel.
Israel charges that many of the prisoners were involved in terror activity. Palestinians, in turn, claim that those held are political prisoners and were fighting on behalf their people’s freedom.
“These are prisoners of war and all international laws apply to them particularly now that Palestine is a state,” said Abu Yusef.
An Israeli official, however, said that it was the Palestinians who had now made themselves vulnerable by signing the Geneva conventions, particularly when it came to the issue of rockets launched from Gaza into Israel.
“According to the Geneva Conventions, the entire Palestinian leadership should be immediately indicted for the thousands of rockets that have been fired from Palestinian territories into Israel in what is a double war crime,” the official said.
Palestinians “deliberately targeted innocent civilians and they are using Gaza’s civilian population as a human shield,” the Israeli official said.
The Palestinians should be extremely careful if they think that international legality can be used as a tool against Israel and can be exploited as a tool against Israel,” the official said
He warned that if they continue along this path, “they might find some very uncomfortable truths about their own behavior. When it comes to law, Israel upholds the highest standards of international conduct.”
On Thursday, rallies were held in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Jenin, Tulkarem and Gaza under the motto “united behind our prisoners.” Participants called on Israel to free all Palestinians in its jails.
The prisoner issue is a particularly sensitive one for Palestinians, but emotions have run particularly high with regard to the issue after Israel in March failed to release 26 Palestinian prisoners from its jails as promised.
Talks about freeing those 26 prisoners and additional ones are at the center of face to face meetings between Israel, Palestinian and the American diplomats. It is expected that some form of a prisoner release will be part of any package deal to extend peace negotiations beyond their April 29 deadline.
Public opinion in Israel has swung against any further releases as an incentive to the Palestinians to continue negotiations. Such calls grew stronger after a pre-Passover attack in on Monday in which a Palestinian terrorist killed Baruch Mizrahi, a father of five as he drove with his family on Route 35 in the West Bank. Mizrahi’s wife, Hadas was moderately wounded and their eight-year old son was lightly injured. Another nine-year-old boy was lightly injured in the attack.
Hadas has called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu not to release any more prisoners.
On Thursday PA Minister for Prisoner Affairs Issa Qaraqi told rally goers in Ramallah that “There will be no agreement and no peace and no extension of the negotiations unless the gates of the prisoners are opened and our prisoners enjoy freedom.”
He added, “[PA President] Mahmoud Abbas has rejected any blackmail with regard to the prisoners and has given them top priority. There will be no agreement and no peace and no extension of the negotiations unless the gates of the prisoners are opened and our prisoners enjoy freedom.”
PLO Executive Committee member, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi said affirming the four Geneva Conventions as well as other international treaties has given a boost to the struggle to release the prisoners because international law and humanitarian law can be applied to them.
She called for an international commission of inquiry to hold Israel accountable for its treatment of the prisoners. She accused Israel of medically neglecting the prisoners, holding them in solitary confinement, mistreating and torturing them.
These acts are “tantamount to war crimes," she said.
Ambassador Alan Baker, who was the former legal advisor for Israel’s Foreign Ministry disputed the claim that the Palestinians were prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. The Palestinians are not fighting “an armed conflict.” He added, “they were put in prison for terrorism and tried for terrorism,” he said.
But chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that Israel had prior obligation to release the prisoners including under the Oslo Agreement and the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement. It is further obligated to free the 26 prisoners.
“For Palestinians having loved ones in prison is not the exception: it is something that has affected every Palestinian family,” he said. “The plight of the prisoners reflects the plight of the Palestinian people as a whole.”
Israel’s incarceration of Palestinian prisoners “reflects one of the worst experiences of imprisonment in contemporary history, designed to break the will of an entire nation seeking freedom,” he said.
The imprisoned include administrative detainees, the infirm, women and minors, Erekat said. In the past, he said, Palestinian parliamentarians were also imprisoned.
“Israel has criminalized all forms of resistance, both armed and peaceful and even political and civic engagement. The Palestinian leadership has chosen to resist through diplomatic and peaceful means in order to achieve the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights as enshrined international law,” Erekat said.
In the West Bank, violent clashes broke out between the IDF and Palestinian activists in Hebron by the Policeman’s Checkpoint for two days in a row.
On Thursday the clashes occurred on the sidelines of a Hebron demonstration to mark Prisoner Day. Security forces responded with riot dispersal means, including tear gas.
The checkpoint separates the section of the city that is under control of the Palestinian Authority from the section of the city that is under Israeli military and civil control.
On both Wednesday and Thursday violence occurred on the Palestinian side, where some 50 rioters angry at Israel over its failure to release prisoners from its jails, threw stones in the direction of the checkpoint.
The rioters also threw stones at IDF soldiers and Border Police who attempted to quell the violence with riot dispersal means that included tear gas.
On Wednesday evening, the IDF injured seven Palestinians in Hebron after clashes broke out by the Policeman’s Checkpoint in which Palestinian rioters also threw stones.
The clashes took place as thousands of visitors streamed to the Cave of the Patriarchs and other Jewish areas of the city under Israeli control so they could celebrate the Passover holiday.
Violence also broke out in Jerusalem on Wednesday where hundreds of Palestinians threw stones and lit fire crackers at police upon opening the main entrance to the Temple Mount.