8 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, has announced the withdrawal of the entry permit for three high-ranking officials of the Palestinian Authority who visited a historic prisoner recently released this week after serving 40 years in prison for murdering a Jewish soldier.
The ban is directed against the governor of Nablus, Mahmud al Alul, the former ambassador to Iraq Azam al Ahmad and the former acting president of the Palestinian Authority Raui Fattu, who met last Thursday in northern Israel with Karim Yunis .
Younis was convicted along with his cousin Maher for the 1980 murder of military man Avraham Bromberg, who was executed with a shot to the head as the corporal was on his way home from his military base in the Golan Heights.
The Yunis were arrested three years later and initially sentenced to life imprisonment, but in 2012 then Israeli President Shimon Peres reduced their sentence to 40 years in prison. Maher will leave, in principle, in two weeks.
This penalty comes two days after the new ultranationalist government of Benjamin Netanyahu imposed a harsh round of sanctions against the Palestinian Authority following the Palestinian government’s success in having the International Court of Justice investigate the legality of Israeli settlements in occupied territory.
The measures include the “seizure” of nearly 40 million euros in tax collections that the Israeli government makes on behalf of the Palestinian authorities.
Another sanction will also prohibit the Palestinian Authority from using money collected for the families of individuals accused by Israel of committing terror attacks in 2022.
As regards the rest of the sanctions, Israel has decided to halt the construction of Palestinian homes in area C of the West Bank, under Israeli control, and to eliminate the treatment of dignitaries for the Palestinian officials implicated in the ICJ petition.
Likewise, the ministers of the Israeli Government have approved the application of future measures against those organizations in the West Bank that “promote terrorist activities”, among them that act “under the guise of humanitarian activity”, according to the conclusions collected by the ‘Times of Israel ‘.
