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Israel using security as pretext to oppress Palestinians: Activist

Wednesday, 16 November 2016 3:33 PM [ Last Update: Wednesday, 16 November 2016 3:36 PM ]

Israeli security forces stand guard during a demonstration of members of the "Combatants for Peace" association on November 11, 2016 on a road close to the West Bank village of al-Khader. (AFP photo)

The Israeli regime’s armed forces have raided the Media and Health Policies Institute in the West Bank city of Ramallah. According to local witnesses, the Israeli forces inflicted injuries on three Palestinian youths during the Wednesday attack and seized computers belonging to the institute.

Mick Napier, with the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, told Press TV’s Top 5 that the Tel Aviv regime misuses security concerns as a pretext to deny the Palestinian people their rights.

Israel is denying Palestinians’ rights for any type of political, economic, educational and cultural freedom, because the Israeli authorities think “they (Palestinians) should disappear and be replaced by Jewish immigrants or pseudo-Jewish immigrants from around the world.”

The activist also stated, “The Israeli [regime] and its supporters in the West think that if they invoke the notion of security then really they can do anything they wish.”

Pointing to the long history of the Tel Aviv regime in misusing the security pretext to conduct illegal activities, he said, “Around 10 years ago, the Israeli soldiers robbed every single bank in Ramallah on security grounds.”

He added that “two years ago, they (Israelis) closed down orphanages in Hebron, aka al-Khalil, and this was also done under the pretext of Israeli security.”

According to the commentator, Palestinian people, who have been trapped in the occupied territories since 1948, “do not have any equality with Jewish Israelis” and the oppressed Palestinians “have been prevented from organizing as a national minority” in order to accept the occupiers as a regime.

“The full spectrum of Israeli violence against Palestinian human rights and social rights is a matter of daily news and of course it is carried out not just by the police but in a division of labor between the police and settlers,” he concluded.

The occupied territories of Palestine have witnessed increased tensions ever since Israeli forces imposed restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds in August 2015. As a result of the restrictions, nearly 250 Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli forces since the beginning of last October.

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