The sale of Palestinian land to Israelis is punishable by death, a Palestinian Authority court ruled on Sunday, in what Palestinian officials are saying is a necessary measure to ensure the founding of a future state.

Judge Ta'et At-Twil, according to a report by the Palestinian news agency Ma'an, ruled that selling, or attempting to sell, land to a foreign country was a criminal offense which could result in the death penalty.

In a statement released following the ruling, the Palestine General Prosecution said the move represented "a consolidation of the previous legal principle," adding that the "ruling aimed to protect the Palestinian national project to establish an independent Palestinian state."

Last year, a Palestinian military court sentenced a man to death by hanging for selling land to an Israeli company, with then prosecutor Issa Amer saying that the defendant had sold land that didn't belong to him in the village of Beit Ummar using forged documents.

Land sales are considered treason by the Palestinians because of their long-running dispute with the Israelis, however the sentence is unlikely to be implemented.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas routinely withholds the required approval for executions. Several others are on death row as suspected informants for Israel.

"I don't say that I wish I hadn't killed her, but I say I wish she hadn't done that," he said.

"I am really sorry for what happened, but I think even if I'm in the same situation now after this experience and she does the same thing, I would kill her again."

"It wasn't my fault, and I haven't done anything wrong," he said.

"I overreacted but I don't think that it makes me deserve jail for a long time."

Found at The Astute Bloggers.

Background:
"Honor" Killings of women in Palestinian society.

The Palestinian Authority, run by Al-Fatah*, is the only regulator for financial institutions and charitable institutions in the West Bank and Gaza. So in that context it declared Hamas-linked Islamic National Bank of Gaza illegal because it hadn't applied for the necessary license to "engage in banking activities" in the area.

US Treasury Department also designated the Bank as being controlled by Hamas, preventing any US national or US companies to have any link with it.The explanation was given by US Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey:

"Consistent with our commitment to a well-regulated and transparent financial system in the Palestinian territories, Treasury will continue to exposeHamas's efforts to create institutions with the trappings of legitimacy that are in fact controlled by and used to support a terrorist organization."

 The PMA continued with enforcing the regulation and froze the assets of another Hamas-linked organization, called "Friends of the Sick Association", because the believed the charity was serving as a front for the terrorist organization.


Hamas' response was to broke in the Gaza Strip branch of the Bank of Palestine and steal the frozen account's money: $400,000.

Via.

Actually both Hamas and Al-Fatah are descendants of the same group (the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood), but despite that fact they continue waging war at one another. Make no mistake: Al-Fatah is no better than Hamas, but the latter is much more truthful, because they don't hide their goals. Both of them want to destroy Israel as a state, so any agreement with them that saveguards Israel's existence is not going to be very welcomed, whatever the rest of the terms.