'No justification' for Abbas' actions against Gazans, rights activist

No matter what the dispute is between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and authorities in the Gaza Strip, there is “no justification whatsoever for these punitive measures” being taken against civilians, the head of the Popular International Committee to Support Gaza wrote in a letter to Abbas today.

How can you accept the death of infants in Gaza just because of a political dispute

the letter by Dr. Essam Yousef continued, “while Gaza has offered you all sorts of concessions including the government, and it accepted that you take all leadership positions without challenge.”

“Despite these concessions, all you have given Gaza is collective punishment, including refusing to recognise more than 30,000 employees who serve their nation and preventing more than 50,000 Palestinian Authority employees from working in the longest period of systematic civil disobedience the world has ever seen. This was all on your instructions and under your rule for more than 10 years. This deserves to enter into the Guinness Book of World Records.”

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“I cannot see a single justification for the measures taken by President Abbas against his people, his relatives and his brothers in Gaza,” Yousef said, adding that collective punishment is a crime against humanity punishable by international law.

Israel, which has besieged Gaza for more than 10 years, has deprived it of the basic necessities for a decent life and has forced people to live in a difficult humanitarian situation and in complete instability.

“Nevertheless, it allowed the entry of some basic necessities, permitting the entry of food commodities and medical supplies so as not to be accused of carrying out genocide in Gaza.”

Mercy has become absent from your heart [Abbas]. You should re-examine your conscience.

Yousef stressed that the solution is to implement all the steps that were agreed upon as part of the national reconciliation agreement that strengthens the Palestinian domestic scene and defeats the Zionist project before it is too late.

He warned: “If Gaza is destroyed, God forbid, because of the incitement and the restrictions you are imposing as well as the Israeli siege, the West Bank and Jerusalem and all the Palestinian people around the world will be next.”

He called on Abbas “to put forward a serious initiative to resolve internal Palestinian disagreements on the basis of national participation by all sections of the Palestinian people and to work on holding free and fair Palestinian elections that the Palestinian people can trust.”