AMMAN: Senior Palestinian leaders have welcomed a call for the reconvening of the Palestine Central Council (PCC).
Tayseer Khaled, a member of the PLO’s executive committee and a senior leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, told Arab News that it was time that the PLO’s top bodies met to assess the current situation.
“The last time that the PCC met was in March 2015 and at that time it was decided to hold a meeting every three months,” he said. Khaled said that a number of decisions made at the last meeting had yet to be carried out. “It was decided to end our connection with the Oslo Accords and the security coordination with Israel but this has not happened.”
Senior Fatah leader Azzam Ahmad said Monday the central council will discuss the declaration of Palestine as a “state under occupation.” Ahmad said that the PCC will convene in the middle of January 2018 in Ramalah.
Tayseer Nasrallah, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council and a member of the Palestine National Council, also welcomed the call for the central council, although he also wants the more important Palestine National Council (PNC) to meet as soon as possible.
“We need the PNC to meet now because of the extremely difficult situation we are in and in order to have a high level discussion of our priorities, and to launch a new national liberation strategy that is in sync with our people’s wishes of having an independent state and enacting the right of return,” he said.
Nasrallah, a Fatah leader in Nablus who spent many years in Israeli jails, told Arab News that it was important to reassess relations with the Israeli occupiers and the Americans. “We need a serious review of the entire Oslo process, what is positive and negative about it, so that we can rid ourselves of these shackles and return to proper relations between an occupied people and the occupation. We also need to seriously review our relations with the United states,” Nasrallah said.
Tayseer Khaled also believes that the time has come for the state of Palestine to join all remaining international organizations and agencies.
“This is an opportune time for the PLO to decide on joining some 22 international agencies we have been prevented from joining due to the US conditions,” he said.
He believes that a new strategy for Palestine should include the need to agree on a new multinational mechanism for sponsoring any future talks.
It is still not clear whether Hamas and Islamic Jihad will attend the upcoming Palestine Central Council and where exactly it will take place. A senior source in the Popular Front said it preferred that the meeting would take place outside the Occupied Territories to ensure that all members attended.
However, Nasrallah told Arab News that it was best to hold the meeting in Palestine and those who could not come could join via video conferencing.
Leaders welcome meeting of Palestine Central Council
Leaders welcome meeting of Palestine Central Council
HRW says Israel’s Lebanon evacuation risks violating laws of war
- “Calling on everyone who lives south of the Litani (River) to evacuate immediately raises serious legal and humanitarian red flags,” said Kaiss
- “How are older people, the sick and people with disabilities going to be able to evacuate immediately?”
BEIRUT: Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that the Israeli military’s call for residents of vast areas of southern Lebanon to evacuate raised “serious risks of violations of the laws of war.”
Lebanon was drawn into the Middle East war when Iran-backed Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel with Israel conducting air strikes across the country and its troops pushing into border towns.
On Thursday, Israel renewed its warning to residents of hundreds of square kilometers (miles) of southern Lebanon to evacuate because of military action.
“Calling on everyone who lives south of the Litani (River) to evacuate immediately raises serious legal and humanitarian red flags and fears for the safety of civilians,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch.
“How are older people, the sick and people with disabilities going to be able to evacuate immediately? And how will their safety be guaranteed as they leave?” he said in a statement from the rights group.
HRW said “the sweeping nature” of Israel’s call raised “concerns that their purpose is not to protect civilians,” adding that the area was home to hundreds of thousands of people.
The evacuation call “raises serious risks of violations of the laws of war,” it added.
Lebanese authorities said dozens of people have been killed and tens of thousands displaced from their homes since Monday.
