Suha Beshara calls for carrying on anti-Israeli struggle

Lebanese anti-Israeli militant Suha Beshara on Friday called for carrying on all forms of struggle against Israel to compel it toevacuate the occupied Arab territories and release all Lebanese and Palestinian detainees.

"Resistance must be carried on under all forms till the Zionists liberate the Arab territories and free the Palestinian and Lebanese detainees," Suha Beshara said at a news conference in Rabat. She also called US President Bill Clinton, who is expected in Palestine and Israel, not to neglect the issue of Palestinian prisoners during his talks with Israeli officials.

Beshara, 31, is a symbol of resistance after her release last September 3 after she spent ten years in Israeli jails in total seclusion for having attempted to assassinate retired Lebanese general Antoine Lahad, head of the pro-Israeli militia in southern Lebanon.

Beshara was detained without trial in Khiam, the main Israeli detention center in the area occupied by Israel in southern Lebanon.

Beshara, who is visiting Morocco at the invitation of two Moroccan human rights organizations and the Moroccan Press Club called the international community to sue Israeli officials as is the case now with former Chilean dictator Agusto Pinochet. The atrocities committed by Israel against the Arabs are no less cruel than the atrocities committed by Pinochet, Beshara said.

She added that human rights are blatantly violated in the Khiam detention center, where Arab inmates are mere hostages whose detention lasts according to the whims of the jailers. She also described the forms of physical and moral torture the inmates are submitted to in addition to the harassment directed against their relatives.

According to reports published by human rights organizations, some 200 prisoners are detained in the Khiam detention center, set up in 1985.

Beshara said that 16 Lebanese young men were tortured to death there and that some of the inmates are over 70.