AI Index: POL 10/017/2004 (Public)
News Service No: 127

Only the section relevant to the Palestinian occupied territories has been posted below, for the complete Update please visit news.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGPOL100172004

On 14 April the US President gave his support to a plan by the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, but to maintain and expand Israeli settlements on occupied territory in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem; to deny the right of return to Palestinian refugees; and to continue construction of the fence/wall inside the West Bank. These plans were condemned as being contrary to international law in a letter to President Bush by Irene Kahn, Secretary General of AI. The Israeli army carried out an extrajudicial execution of Hamas' leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin on 22 March 2004 in the Gaza Strip and his successor Abdel Aziz Rantisi on 18 April. The March attack also resulted in the unlawful killing of seven other Palestinians and the injury of many more.

A suicide attack in Jerusalem on 29 January 2004 claimed the lives of at least ten people and injured scores of others when a man blew himself up in a bus.

Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli nuclear whistleblower, was released on 21 April having served an 18-year prison sentence in full, much of it in solitary confinement. However, the Israeli government placed unprecedented restrictions on him, refusing him the right to travel freely. He is forbidden from leaving Israel and cannot contact foreign citizens without permission.