Official: Palestinian Nation Not to Withdraw from Legitimate Rights

Source : Fars News Agency

TEHRAN (FNA)- A senior official of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine condemned the Zionist regime for its attempts to legitimize its illegal settlements on Palestinian lands, and stressed that the Palestinian nation will never give up its legitimate rights.

"The occupying regime's decision to legitimize four settlements and the measures taken by the occupiers is a firm reason showing their expansionist and colonial goals and their efforts to render useless every possible solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," Qais Abdulkarim told FNA on Sunday.

He said that the Palestinian nation will not accept the imposition of Israel's wills, and stressed that the Palestinian people are seriously seeking to materialize their legitimate rights and will not give up their struggle for forming an independent Palestinian government inside the June 1967 borders with the holy Qods city as its capital.

UN Human Rights Council released a report in February in which it called on the Israeli government to evacuate all the settlements set up on Palestinian territories, considering that the presence of those settlements lead to the violation of Palestinians rights.

After the report, Hamas movement hailed the report of the UN Human Rights Council which calls for the evacuation of all settlements in the Palestinian occupied territories.

Sami Abu Zuhri, the movement spokesman, said, "This UN report represents a positive step and is in the right way; but it needs practical steps to force the occupation to comply with it".

He called for imposing sanctions to deter the occupation from stealing Palestinian lands and forcibly displacing its people.

Abu Zuhri stressed the need to force the occupation authorities to stop the settlement activity and the Judaization policy pursued against the city of Jerusalem.

He also asserted that the Palestinian people have the right to confront and resist the settlement building and the occupation crimes by all available means

Hamas accuses Israel of reducing Gaza fishermen's work space

Source : http://www.globaltimes.com

Hamas on Friday accused Israel of violating an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire by restoring restrictions on Gaza fishermen's work space.

The Israeli decision to reduce the fishing space to three nautical miles coincides with the closure of the only commercial crossing point for Gaza Thursday in response to rockets fired from Gaza on Israeli targets, which left no injuries.

"This is a clear violation of the ceasefire and we blame the Israeli occupation on any consequences of this decision," Sami Abu Zuhri, spokesperson of the Islamic movement, told Xinhua.

Abu Zuhri called on Egypt, in its capacity as the sponsor of the truce, "to follow up" with Israel and "shoulder its responsibility regarding this violation," stressing that the Palestinian factions will stay committed to the truce.

The agreement reached last November, which ended eight days of cross-border fighting between Hamas militants and Israel, requires Israel to increase the fishing space to six nautical miles, adding more facilities at the crossing point and canceling a 300-meter- wide buffer zone along its borders with Gaza.

An Al-Qaida-linked group, which has often challenged Hamas' rule in Gaza, claimed responsibility for firing the rockets into Sderot on Thursday, the second of their kind since the ceasefire.

The Israeli army said Thursday that one of the rockets hit the yard of a house in the southern town of Sderot, another landed in an open area in Sha'ar HaNegev Regional Council, and two others fell short inside Gaza.

The rockets firing came as US President Barack Obama was visiting Israel and the West Bank.

Last month, Israel said Palestinian militants fired a Grad rocket into the southern coastal city of Ashkelon.

On the other hand, the Israeli army have killed four Palestinians and wounded dozens in separate incidents since the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire took effect.