RAMALLAH, Sunday, January 05, 2020 (WAFA) – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates announced today its intention to report the ongoing Israeli crackdown on the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of al-Issawiya to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In a statement, the Ministry said “it is viewing with grave concern the Israeli escalation in the continuous detention campaigns of Palestinian citizens in the occupied Palestinian territory, to the point that hardly a day passes by without the arrest of dozens of Palestinians, the last of which was the arrest of more than 17 citizens in different areas of the occupied West Bank, with a main focus on occupied East Jerusalem and the neighborhood of al-Issawiya in particular.”

“Additionally, Israeli forces practically imposed a night house arrest on a number of youths in Jerusalem for periods ranging from three to four months, in complete contradiction with international law and human rights principles,” the statement added.

The Ministry warned against the consequences of “dealing with mass and arbitrary arrests as things that have become a daily routine as they are repeated every day, or dealing with them as statistics only, which hides the extent of the great suffering of Palestinian families due to the nightly raids of Palestinian towns. These raids are frequently accompanied by the firing of bullets, gas and acoustic canisters, and with violent incursions into the homes of defenseless civilians.”

K.T/M.N