Dear Friends of PACE,
Dear Friends of the Palestinian people,

Three days ago, the UN Commission on Human Rights endorsed a resolution condemning the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force by Israel against the Palestinian civilians. The commission called for the creation of an international human rights team of inquiry to gather and compile information on the violations of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories and provide the Commission with its conclusions and recommendations. A day later the UN general assembly also condemned Israel for its oppressive policies against the Palestinian people.

The Israeli response to those resolutions was no different from its response to a similar resolution passed by the UN Security Council a week ago, and all previous UN resolutions. Total defiance of international will, international law, and legitimacy. Actually the Israeli cruelty against the Palestinians intensified during the past few days. Last Saturday, the Israeli army shot and killed 10 people and wounded more than 270 people. This week was much more violent than the previous two weeks of the intefada. This was the kind of Israeli compliance with international law and legitimacy that the world is used to.

In the city of Nablus alone, four people were killed in one day, and more than 80 people, were injured. Many of the wounded were in critical condition, and two of them died today in hospital. The pictures that were published in local newspapers yesterday of the martyr from Askar refugee camp, whose head exploded from an Israeli bullet, is only one example of Israeli cruelty. The three other martyrs from Nablus were children under the age of

15. Another child from al-Amari refugee camp was shot and killed during the huge demonstration (over 20,000 people) that the city of Ramallah witnessed on that same day. More than 160 people were wounded during this peaceful demonstration. Many members of PACE who were in the demonstration reported that the Israeli army was shooting live pullets indiscriminately at the demonstrators.

The current Palestinian intifada which started as a cry against Sahron's visit to the Haram Al Sharif area in Jerusalem has now been transformed into a war of independence from a 32 years of oppressive occupation. Israel is decided to commit genocide and ethnic cleansing in the occupied Palestinian lands in an effort to prolong its occupation. It is a real genocide against a people whose only mistake is to rise up for its freedom. And unless the Israeli oppressive measures are stopped by the Arab world and the international community, the Israeli army and the settlers will intensify their efforts to get rid once and for all from all Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip and may be from Israel itself too.

The Palestinian people should not be left alone to face the Israeli occupation army which is armed to the teeth by all kinds of inhuman and modern military equipment. Israel should be classified as an outlaw state, and the Palestinian people should be granted international protection pending the establishment of a state of their own.

The PACE team