Erekat calls for international intervention in release of female hunger striker

Senior PLO committee member Saeb Erekat has called on United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Catherine Ashton to intervene for the release of a Palestinian woman who has been on hunger strike for 18 days. Hana Shalabi is protesting against the administrative detention policy adopted by Israel’s military occupation.

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In a press release issued after his meetings with the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Robert Serry and  the EU Representative to the Palestinian Territory John Gatt-Rutter, Dr. Erekat stressed that Mahmoud Abbas “is making a great efforts on the prisoners’ and detainees’ dossier”. He noted that the PA President has assigned him to work on the release of Ms. Shalabi.

On the wider issue of the occupation, Erekat said that he holds the Israeli government fully accountable for the deterioration of the peace process through its insistence on settlement activities and the imposition of “facts on the ground”.

“If the international community wants to bring the peace process back on track,” he said, “it has to compel the Israeli government to stop all settlement activities, including those in East Jerusalem, and to accept the principle of a two-state solution.”