A call for a comprehensive national tolerance campaign to close the bleeding wound

Within the series of round-table meetings organised by the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution through the events of the popular campaign for community reconciliation, a meeting was held at the Centre's premises in Gaza bringing together a group of notables, mukhtars and police officers to discuss "The role of custom and law in supporting community reconciliation". At the start of the meeting, Mr. Iyad Abu Hjair, director of the Centre in Gaza, spoke about the reality of the current cooperation and dealings between the police and the reconciliation committees, and that this relationship must be developed and improved and be complementary in order to contribute to resolving community issues. Samir Al-Muqadama, coordinator of the Khan Younis reconciliation committees, called for the police not to discriminate between one reconciliation committee and another on party grounds, and that they must be marked by integrity, because the Ministry of Interior has recognised the reconciliation committees affiliated to clan affairs in order to facilitate their task. One of the participating officers stated that the police deal with all the mukhtars without discrimination, because in many reconciliations they rely on resolution by custom and by traditions. Mukhtar Aref Qaddoum called for the police to recognise all the reconciliations accomplished by the reconciliation committees, which do not discriminate between families regardless of the affiliations that make up all the families in Gaza. One of the public relations officers stated that these meetings bring viewpoints closer among the mukhtars, of whom we as police are proud, and one of the officers expressed the wish that the current division would end, because it makes it difficult to resolve some community reconciliations. At the end of the meeting, Iyad Abu Hjair called for a comprehensive national tolerance campaign to end the state of division in our Palestinian society, and for all efforts to be joined to close the files left outstanding by the events of 2007.