Israeli police lure Palestinian MP from Red Cross refuge and abduct him

Undercover Israeli police officers have abducted Palestinian MP Ahmed Atoun from the Red Cross compound in Jerusalem where he had sought refuge in the face of a deportation order. Along with fellow MPs Mohamed Toutoh and Khaled Abu Arafa, Mr Atoun has been in the grounds of the International Red Cross for more than a year after Israel ordered their expulsion from their home city.

The Islamic Movement’s Change and Reform bloc in the Palestinian Legislative Council has demanded that the Red Cross live up to its responsibility of protecting Jerusalem’s parliamentarians and challenge the Israeli Occupation Authorities for Mr Atoun’s abduction.

The Zionist Occupation Authorities are determined to empty Jerusalem of its Palestinian residents,” said a spokesman for the Islamist bloc, “starting with our leaders and national figures.” The spokesman added that the bloc’s members reject “the Zionists’ contempt for international law and Israel’s so-called Judaisation policies” in Occupied East Jerusalem.