ARABS-UN - Mar. 28 - Expert Sees Widespread Israeli Abuses.

Giorgio Giacomelli, an Italian expert reporting to the UN Human Rights Commission on problems in the territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, says the Israeli residency policy for east Jerusalem "dismembers" Palestinian families. Giacomelli says Israeli treatment of Palestinians in east Jerusalem "affects all aspects of life, as well as having dramatic consequences on the demographic, historic and cultural character of the city itself". He writes that the Palestinians are subject to discrimination, double standards and actions to disrupt their society throughout the territories occupied by Israel. David Peleg, the Israeli ambassador to the UN in Geneva, attacks the report as deliberately unbalanced. He says: "The report merely provides a platform for unsubstantiated allegations against Israel. It makes no effort to distinguish between fact and opinion. It is rife with political assertions". Giacomelli says he was only allowed to report on Israel, which is considered by the UN to be the "occupying power", but he says the commission should consider extending his mandate to include areas now controlled by the Palestinian Authority. Giacomelli says that since 1967, when Israel took the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Israel cancelled the identity cards of 6,264 Palestinians in Jerusalem, separating families and affecting more than 25,000 people. He says since 1996, when Israel intensified the policy, some 2,200 to 3,000 Palestinians have been forced to leave the city or live there illegally. Giacomelli says: "2 aspects are unique to Palestinians of Jerusalem - the wholesale imposition of Israeli domestic laws in the city, and the special discrimination practised by Israel's arbitrary denial and revocation of residency, which dismembers families".

In Jerusalem, Roman Polonsky, spokesman for Interior Minister Natan Sharansky, says the minister "ended the policy of cancelling the permanent resident status of east Jerusalem residents on grounds of prolonged absence from the city. The number of cancellations has dropped very significantly". In his 20-page report, Giacomelli says that Israeli occupation forces "frequently carry out punitive and violent demolition of Palestinian homes for lack of permit as well as forcible evictions of entire villages". (Israel says it only demolishes homes built without permits. However, Palestinians have complained that requests for permits are almost always rejected despite the needs of growing families.)

Giacomelli says urgent action was needed to remedy the situation and calls for international monitoring and protection "to defuse conflict, resolve tensions and assist good faith efforts on both sides". Israel rejects Giacomelli's mandate, claiming that the situation has changed in recent years because much of the territory is now under the control of the Palestinian Authority. Peleg says Israel would co-operate with a report once it considered human rights abuses committed by the Palestinian Authority as well. He says there were well-documented cases of torture, arbitrary arrests and detention, lack of due legal process and limited freedom of speech in the Palestinian Authority.