Paris, September 20, 2002.

The FIDH is horrified by the two suicide attacks perpetrated in Israel September 18 and 19 in Oum el Fahm in Galilee and in Tel Aviv. These attacks caused the death of 8 people (including the two kamikazes) and injured at least 60 others. The FIDH is worried by the recommencement of suicide attacks, as the last one was carried out on August 4, 2002.

The FIDH strongly condemns these attacks that claim civilians for victims and that are wholly unjustifiable. The FIDH emphasizes that attacks against civilians constitute a grave violation of international law, in all circumstances.

The FIDH calls on the Palestinian Authority to implement, with all due speed, all the necessary measures, in conformity with universal norms of protection of a person's rights, in order that the perpetrators and other authors of these attacks be arrested and brought forth before the law.

Further, the FIDH calls on the Israeli government to strictly conform to its international obligations and in particular to international humanitarian law in responding to these attacks. The FIDH is concerned by the new Israeli incursion in Ramallah the night of September 19 in reaction to these attacks that only accentuate the cycle of violence.

The FIDH calls on the Israeli and Palestinian authorities to ensure that this skewed logic of violence and reprisals ends immediately and is replaced by dialogue.