30 March 1996
HUMAN RIGHTS UPDATE 22-29 MARCH
WEEK MARKED BY MASS ARRESTS OF STUDENTS BY ISRAELI ARMY
On 28 March, the Israeli army raided the town Bir Zeit (near Ramallah) and surrounding villages in a pre-dawn raid, arresting 371 students. The invasion was reportedly staged to round up students from the Gaza Strip who have remained in Bir Zeit to continue their education, despite Israeli attempts to force them to abandon their studies and return home. According to Bir Zeit University, about 10% of their student body was arrested in this raid, and only a few were from the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military raided the student houses and dormitories in Bir Zeit and nearby villages, broke into these buildings and arrested everyone inside, including the students' visitors. The students were tied-up, blindfolded and led to a football field for questioning.
This mass arrest, and the denial to Gaza students their right to an education in the West Bank, violates the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement which views the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit, and therefore consitutes a clear violation of the peace accords.
Other Human Rights Violations:
On 22 March, settlers from Sussia settlement, near Yatta in the Hebron district, forcibly took 20 dunums of agricultural land belonging to Yatta residents, destroyed the olive trees planted there, and enclosed the area with barbed wire to link it to their settlement.
On 24 March, Rafat village near Ramallah was still under village curfew and running low on basic food and produce.
By 25 March, the Jerusalem Industrial Union stated that industrial plants in the Jerusalem area are losing 400,000 shekels a day. To date, they announced that they had lost at least 7 million shekels.
On 28 March, the Palestinian secret police arrested 60 people in the Jericho area, targeting the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee, a Palestinian NGO. Eight staff members and about 50 farmers from the area were arrested at 7:00 a.m. and detained, for no apparent reason, until 8:00 at night. They also entered the office of PARC, and conducted a cursory search. No reason was given for the raid or arrests.
Land and Water Establishment is a Palestinian NGO, which seeks to defend human rights through legal advocacy.