Civil Organizations: The Occupation's Piracy of Businesses in Ramallah Aims to Undermine Local Economy

Sada News - The Palestinian Network of Civil Organizations has called for immediate and urgent action to stop the escalating assaults carried out by the occupying state in the occupied Palestinian territories. It referred to the extensive and brutal incursion that took place earlier today, "Tuesday," in the center of Ramallah, where businesses, including exchange shops, were raided, their contents confiscated, and their workers arrested. This is seen as a continuation of the hostile actions against the Palestinian people, a systematic piracy aimed at destroying the foundations of the local economy amidst the ongoing theft of tax revenues, known as clearance funds, and the continued siege and closures, alongside the destruction of crops, as witnessed in many areas, including the town of Al-Mughayer, where tens of thousands of fruitful olive trees were uprooted over 72 hours of incursions into the town.

The network emphasized that what is happening is a systematic and comprehensive aggression against the most basic elements of life, aimed at implementing a plan for displacement and attempts to uproot the Palestinian people from their land. It considers the ongoing repeated incursions into Palestinian cities, including Ramallah and Al-Bireh, where the Palestinian Authority and leadership are based, as part of a plan to eliminate the authority itself and destabilize its existence. This necessitates action at the international levels to secure international protection for the Palestinian people and pressure to stop the open aggression, including the genocide in the Gaza Strip, and to submit clear memoranda to international institutions to halt economic and trade agreements with it.

In the same context, the network called for immediate action to compel the occupying state to stop its procedures and to consider its practices in the Palestinian territories as war crimes that require activating international accountability tools and taking tangible steps to force the occupying state to cease its actions, alongside working to suspend its membership in international institutions due to the severity of the assaults perpetrated by both settler gangs and occupation soldiers alike.

The network condemned the siege and repression of participants, including women, children, and families of prisoners, in the weekly sit-in in front of the Al-Bireh Cultural Center on the occasion of the National Day for the Retrieval of the bodies of martyrs held in what is known as the numbered cemeteries or the occupation's refrigerators. It denounced the firing of live ammunition at them, the deployment of snipers on nearby buildings during the sit-in, and the throwing of sound bombs and tear gas at them, which resulted in injuries to many. This is a disgraceful act that represents a violation of international law and international humanitarian law.