CAIRO (Dispatches) – The Arab League has welcomed a report by the UN which notes that the Zionist regime’s policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territories are crimes under international criminal law.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territories pointed out that the Zionist regime’s transfer of part of its civil population to occupied territories amounts to a war crime. Forced expulsion, it added, is a crime against humanity.
According to the Arab League’s Assistant Secretary General for the Affairs of Palestine and Arab Occupied Territories, Said Abu Ali, the report is an important addition to the growing list of such documents issued by the UN and international human rights organizations.
Abu Ali stressed the importance of Zionist leaders and officials being held to account for their crimes and violations of human rights. He called on the international community to take steps to protect the rights of the Palestinian people and work towards justice so that they fulfill their legitimate rights and end the occupation of their land.
Meanwhile, Palestinian resistance fighters opened fire on Zionist troops in the West Bank city of Nablus on Sunday night, amid heightened tensions in the occupied territories.
Palestinian sources said resistance fighters intensively opened fire on an Israeli military position on Gerizim Mountain in Nablus.
The regime’s army has imposed a strict siege on Nablus since October 11, blocking the city’s entrances with military checkpoints and earth mounds, while Zionist drones constantly hover over the northern West Bank city.
The siege came in the wake of a shooting attack carried out by the Lion’s Den group near Nablus which killed a Zionist soldier.
The siege, which regime officials said will continue until further notice, has had economic repercussions on a city that has a particular industrial and commercial importance for the West Bank.
The shooting took place as the Arin al-Osoud (Lion’s Den) group on Sunday vowed a strong response to the assassination of one of its members earlier in the day.
In the early hours of Sunday, Tamer al-Kilani was killed in Nablus in a bomb blast blamed on Zionist troops.
Zionist troops have recently been conducting raids and killings in the northern occupied West Bank, mainly in the cities of Jenin and Nablus, where new groups of Palestinian resistance fighters have been formed.
At least 175 Palestinians have been killed by the regime’s troops in the occupied West Bank as well as in the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the year, including 51 Palestinians during the regime’s three-day assault on Gaza in August, according to the Palestinian health ministry.