Geneva/West Bank: A UN report suggests that Palestinian terror is the 'inevitable consequence' of Israeli occupation and laws that resemble South African apartheid.
The report by John Dugard, independent investigator on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the UN Human Rights Council, is to be presented next month, but it has been posted on the body's website. Dugard says "common sense ... dictates that a distinction must be drawn between acts of mindless terror, such as acts committed by Al Qaida, and acts committed in the course of a war of national liberation against colonialism, apartheid or military occupation."
Meanwhile, Israeli troops seized the facilities of a Hamas-affiliated charity in the West Bank city of Hebron, saying it funnelled money to the group's activities and recruited members to its ranks, the army announced.
The move against the Islamic Charity Movement came three weeks after two Hamas members from Hebron carried out a suicide bombing that killed a woman in the Israeli town of Dimona.
The charity is a front to strengthen Hamas' foothold in the West Bank, the military said in a statement yesterday. Hamas, which advocates Israel's destruction, violently seized power in the Gaza Strip in June, and both Israel and the moderate government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are afraid the group will try to wrest control of the West Bank as well.
Since the Hamas takeover, Israel has closed a series of charities, offices and money-changing shops in the West Bank and Jerusalem that it says were Hamas fronts.
Witnesses said the charity's two facilities in Hebron were shut down and stripped clean by Israeli troops, who confiscated computers, telephones and four buses. At least a dozen shops affiliated with the charity were ordered to shut down, they said.
Also yesterday, a senior diplomat said the United States will provide additional aid to Palestinian refugees, including those living in Gaza Strip.
In January, the US government contributed $40 million to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), and Samuel Witten, assistant secretary of state in charge of refugees, said more would be forthcoming.
"We will be making additional substantial contributions in the near future," he told reporters during a visit to an UNRWA-built girls' primary school and clinic in the Jalazon refugee camp near the West Bank city of Ramallah. Much of that support will go to the more than one million refugees living in Gaza.
