Over the past several days, PCHR met a number of international delegations
including the UN High Profile Fact Finding Mission into the Beit Hanoun
massacre in November 2006, a European parliamentary delegation, a CIDSE
(Catholic development) delegation from Ireland and Belgium, and the American
“Council for National Interest.”
On Wednesday, 28 May, a PCHR delegation met Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who
headed the UNHRC High Level Fact Finding Mission investigating the massacre
by the Israeli army against El-Athamna family on 8 November 2006. The PCHR
delegation consisted of Jaber Weshah (Deputy Director), Hamdi Shaqoura
(Director of Democratic Development Unit), and Eyad El-Alami (Director of
Legal Unit). The Center’s delegation welcomed the arrival of the mission
despite Israel’s rejection to cooperate with it. And they presented the
mission with documented evidence about the massacre that resulted in the
death of 18 members of the same family. The Center’s delegation stressed
that the massacre under investigation was not the first perpetrated in the
Gaza Strip; and that massacres are an old Israeli policy used during
incursions. PCHR’s staff stated that many massacres were perpetrated over
the past several years without any noticeable action by the international
community. In addition, the meeting discussed the overall human rights
situation and the impact of the siege imposed on the OPT, especially the
deteriorated situation in the Gaza Strip.
On 29 May, Jaber Weshah met a delegation from the Irish Charity and
Development Agency (Trocaire) and representatives of French and Belgian
member organizations of the International
Cooperation for Development and Solidarity (CIDSE). The meeting
discussed the human rights situation in the Gaza Strip and the deteriorated
humanitarian situation in the territory. On 30 May, PCHR organized a field
visit for the visiting delegation in Khan Yunis and Rafah. They witnessed
the IOF destruction of civilian property and farms over the past month. The
delegation met a number of victims of IOF operations and listened to their
accounts.
On 1 June, a delegation from the National Council of Interest from the US
visited PCHR and met Jaber Weshah. The delegation was headed by the Chairman
of the Council former US Ambassador to Jordan Richard Viets. The meeting
discussed the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and systematic
violations of human rights of the Strip’s civilian population. Weshah
affirmed to the delegation the importance of lobbying to pressure IOF to
respect their legal responsibilities towards the occupied territory,
including the immediate lifting of the siege.
Also on 1 June, Jaber Weshah met a European Parliament delegation that
included Luisa Morgantini, the Deputy Speaker of the European Parliament.
Weshah gave the visitors an account of the human rights situation in the
OPT, especially the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip as
a result of a hermitic IOF siege. Weshah asked the Parliament Members to
lobby European governments to take a more proactive role against the human
rights violations against Palestinians, especially through the utilization
of the human rights stipulations of the European-Israeli Partnership
Agreements.
And on 1 June, a delegation from the office of UNRWA’s Commissioner-General,
Karen Abu Zayd, visited PCHR and met Jaber Weshah, who congratulated the
visitors on the extension of Ms. Abu Zayd’s tenure for another year. He
affirmed the importance of increasing UNRWA’s services, especially health
and educational services, in light of the escalating poverty and
unemployment. Weshah also stressed the importance of exposing all IOF
actions that hinder UNRWA from delivering its services.
