Berri Urges Heads of Parliaments, Unions to Pressure Israel to Halt Gaza Assault

Speaker Nabih Berri urged on Friday the various heads of parliaments and unions to pressure Israel to end its assault against the Gaza Strip.

He called in a letter to the various presidents for holding emergency sessions “in order to launch a parliamentary campaign to pressure Israel to halt its aggression against the Palestinian people.”

“For several years, Israel has arrested over 10,000 Palestinians, including elected parliamentarians and members of legislative councils,” he added in his letter.

“It has been performing wide settlement expansions and it has carried out for months various attacks against Palestinian leaders,” said the speaker.

Berri therefore demanded that the emergency parliamentary sessions study methods to protect the Palestinian people.

They should also call for reconstructing what Israel had destroyed during its past and current assault and releasing the Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, he said.

Furthermore, the parliamentarians should assert their support for the national rights of the Palestinian people, including the establishment of their own independent state, added the speaker.

He sent his letter to the head of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, francophone parliamentary union head Jacques Chagnon, Secretary General of the Arab Parliamentary Union Noureddine Bouchkouj, Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union Anders Johnson, Secretary General of the Asian Parliamentary Assembly Nejad Hosseinian, Secretary General of the union of parliaments of the Organization of the Islamic Conference Mahmoud Erol Kilic, and Chairman of the Middle East Committee of the European Parliament Mario David.