Israel responsible in refugee crisis: PLO
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has accused Israel of having a hand in the creation of the refugee crisis facing Europe.
PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi made the comments during a meeting with United Nations officials in the city of Ramallah on Monday.
Israel “bears a moral responsibility for the plight of the Palestinian refugees and the grave injustices of the past,” the PLO official said, adding that Israel “is in the business of creating refugees and ethnic cleansing.”
She also thanked Germany and Austria for accepting asylum seekers amid an ongoing refugee crisis, which has seen thousands of people from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan flee their countries for Europe.
“It is our hope that other countries will follow suit in light of this devastating situation,” said the PLO official.
Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said he would allow refugees into the occupied Palestinian territories.
Syria and Iraq have been witnessing a wave of foreign-backed violence, with Daesh militants carrying out deadly attacks in the region over the past few years.
Many reports say Western powers and their allies including, Israel, have been supporting the militants carrying out atrocities in the region.
The United Nations says that over 350,000 people have left the Middle East and North Africa for Europe this year, but around 2,800 people have died as they attempted to cross the Mediterranean in boats.
Palestinian Legal rights group Badil said back in April that tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees living in Syria had also fled the country. According to the group, more than 50 percent of the 480,000 Palestinian refugees still living in Syria are internally displaced, and 95 percent in dire need of humanitarian assistance.
About 800,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes after the establishment of the Israeli regime in 1948.
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