Alwaght- The Palestinian resistance movements, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, warned Israeli regime over the continuing siege on the Gaza Strip and the regime’s land expropriation and illegal settlements expansion activities in the occupied West Bank and al-Quds.
The two movements made the warning during a meeting that brought together their senior officials in the Lebanese capital city of Beirut on Friday, the Arabic service of Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency reported.
“The continuation of the occupying Israeli regime’s settlement projects in the occupied West Bank and al-Quds, and its continued siege of the Gaza Strip cannot be tolerated, and the Palestinian resistance front cannot allow the situation to continue as it is,” they stressed in a joint statement.
Gaza Strip, home to some two million Palestinians, has been under an all-out Israeli siege since June 2007. The tight blockade has caused a decline in the standards of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.
More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.
All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law as they are built on occupied land. The United Nations Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.
Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state with East al-Quds as its capital.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad underlined the need “to achieve national Palestinian unity, on the basis of partnership, restructure and development of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and an agreement on a national struggle campaign [against Israel].”
The resistance groups also expressed their opposition to the Tel Aviv regime’s flagrant violations of Palestinian prisoners’ rights, and cautioned Israeli authorities against the grave consequences of their practices.
Israeli jail authorities keep Palestinian prisoners under deplorable conditions lacking proper hygienic standards.
Palestinian inmates have also been subjected to systematic torture, harassment, and repression.
There are reportedly more than 7,000 Palestinians held at Israeli jails. Hundreds of the inmates have been apparently incarcerated under the practice of the so-called administrative detention. Some prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to 11 years.
Palestinians and human rights groups say "administrative detention" violates the right to due process since evidence is withheld from prisoners while they are held for lengthy periods without being charged, tried, or convicted.
The detention takes place on orders from a military commander and on the basis of what the Israeli regime describes as secret evidence.
Rights groups describe Israel’s use of administrative detention as a “bankrupt tactic” and have long called on the regime to bring the practice to an end.
