This morning, 18th of January, Ayman Odeh, Member of the Knesset and head of the Joint List, was seriously injured by shots fired by Israeli police – hitting him in the head and the back – while he was protesting the destruction of the Bedouin village of Umm Al-Hiran. A villager, Mr. Yaqub Musa Abu Qi’an, was shot dead behind the wheel of his car; several more people were wounded and an Israeli soldier died of injuries sustained in uncertain circumstances.

For years, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has carried out a violent policy of expulsion and deportation of 100,000 Bedouins living in the Negev Desert; their living conditions are spartan, without access to water or electricity as the State refuses to accommodate them on the grounds that their villages are “illegal”.

The Hadash party and the Communist Party of Israel have continually supported the Bedouins in their struggle against violence and the discriminatory, segregationist policies that are part of the “apartheidisation” of Israel.

MP Ayman Odeh’s injuries indicate that he had his back turned to the police when they shot him. The police and the Israeli army act without mandate to humiliate, violate, wound and arrest dozens of Palestinians and Israelis every day. They kill unarmed individuals. In 2014, Israeli security forces killed Palestinian Minister Ziad Abou Ein during a rally; today they killed a defenceless villager and severely wounded a Member of the Knesset. What are the European Union and its Members States – and France first of all – waiting for to order the immediate suspension of EU-Israel cooperation agreements, as a response to the violation of Article 2 on human rights?

The French Communist Party condemns the actions of the Israeli government in the village of Umm Al-Hiran and against the Bedouins: the PCF fully supports and offers solidarity to the villagers attacked at dawn, to MP Ayman Odeh and the other members of his parliamentary group, and to the Communist Party of Israel.

The President and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of France must speak out against the odious acts committed by the Israeli police in Umm Al-Hiran and demand that the Netanyah administration end the occupation and destruction of Bedouin villages and the colonisation of Palestinian lands.

Just three days after the Paris Conference, the PCF urges the President and the government of France to recognize the Palestinian State without delay, to show Israel’s far right forces that there is no other path forward than that of peaceful co-existence.

French Communist Party
Paris, 18 January 2017