Press Releases

The occupation continues: 18 to be deported to Gaza; new category of refugees created

BADIL Resource Center
17 October 2003
For Immediate Release


Neither violence nor the flouting of international law will bring peace to Palestinians and Israelis, says the BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights.

 

BADIL, in a statement from its Bethlehem headquarters, says that only an end to the Israeli occupation of West Bank and Gaza and recognition of Palestinian rights under international law would be a firm basis on which to build a lasting solution to the Palestinian refugee issue and avoid the kind of events that have rocked the area and further delayed the possibility of a peace agreement:

 

  • 18 West Bank residents to be deported to the Gaza Strip;
  • almost 14,000 Palestinians living in  the “closed zone” between Israel’s newly built “security” wall and the border of Israel given a new status  requiring special permits;
  • thousands of other Palestinians cut off from their farms and land located in the “closed zone”;
  • thousands of hectares/acres of Palestinian land confiscated to build the wall; and
  • 8 killed, scores injured and some 1,500 left homeless in Rafah, Gaza after Israeli army incursions and three dead in an attack on a U.S. embassy convoy in Gaza.

 

BADIL takes a rights-based view of the issue of Palestinian refugees and encourages an understanding of this approach through support of research on refugee rights and international law; advocacy; and encouragement of popular participation in the process.

 

 


(See also: Protection for Refugee Populated AreasBulletin No. 6www.badil.org)