The European Parliament will send a fact-finding mission to assess the situation of Palestinian prisoners in Israel in the beginning of next year, it was announced at a meeting this week of the Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with the Palestinian Legislative Council (DPLC).
Irish Socialist MEP Emer Costello, who chairs the delegation, said the Chairman of the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Elmar Brok, had approved the proposition to send the fact-finding mission after being asked for an opinion on this from Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament. Brok reportedly met with the Israeli Ambassador to the EU, David Walzer, concerning this matter.
In a resolution passed last March, the EU parliament had called for ‘’a fact-finding mission to assess the current situation with regard to the detention conditions of Palestinian prisoners, including women and children, and the use of administrative detention.’’
A five-member delegation of the DPLC, led by Costello, visited the West Bank and East Jerusalem at the end of last month. She depicted the situation of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails as “shocking” and said the fact- finding mission shall examine the issue “hopefully by the end of January.
She also told that she experienced it as a “moving moment” when the parliamentarian delegation witnessed the homecoming reception in Ramallah for 26 Palestinian prisoners who had been released by Israel as part of a goodwill gesture to restart the peace talks with the Palestinians.
The delegation’s attendance at the Ramallah celebration was denounced as ‘’unacceptable’’ by Italian MEP Fiorello Provera, who is Vice-Chairman of the Parliament’s foreign affairs committee. He issued a statement saying: “I wonder if any of my colleagues was informed about the atrocities these men committed. Each of the 26 men has their own story of assassination to tell. Many of their victims were ordinary Israelis who were trying to make a living. Many of them were old and caught defenceless. Although these men were released as a goodwill gesture, they are still criminals”. ‘’The risk is that a truly goodwill gesture meant to facilitate the peace process becomes the occasion for someone to glorify common criminals.’’
During the DPLC meeting, a representative of the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Colonel Grisha Yakubovich, reported on Israel’s e contribution to assure infrastructure and security in the West Bank. According to him, COGAT cooperates “hand in hand” with the Palestinian Authority on this matter.
This was called “surreal’’ by another Irish MEP, Paul Murphy, from the European Left group, who held the Israeli army ‘’responsible for demolitions and evictions in villages of the Jahalin Bedouin community based in Area C.’’
Col. Yakubovich admitted that “mistakes had been made in the past” but justified that evictions were only carried out “for security reasons” and always on a legal basis. Moreover, he repeatedly stressed his condemnation of the settler’s violence in the region after representatives of the Palestinians had reported on a rise in attacks from the side of settlers since the beginning of the peace negotiations.