RAMALLAH, Wednesday, June 7, 2023 (WAFA) – Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said today that the Palestinian people are facing ongoing Israeli aggression and a continuous war in various forms.

Shatyyeh made these remarks during his meeting in Ramallah with the European Union's Special Representative for Human Rights, Eamonn Gilmour, in the presence of the European Union's representative to Palestine, Sven Kuhn von Burgsdorff.

“The Israeli occupation deprives our people of their most basic rights, as it places restrictions on movement with military checkpoints and walls, denies us our right to elections, seizes our lands, demolishes homes and displaces their residents,” he said.

"How long will the international silence continue towards what is happening here in Palestine in terms of violations and measures of the occupation,” Shtayyeh inquired.

He also called for stopping the double standard policies toward the Palestinian cause and holding Israel accountable for its crimes against the Palestinian people.

"Since the beginning of the year, more than 160 Palestinians, including 28 children and six women, have been killed by the occupation forces and settlers, and Israel continues to keep hundreds of martyrs in refrigerators and graves of numbers,” the Prime Minister revealed.

Since 1967, Shtayyeh said, Israel has uprooted 2.5 million trees from our lands, including 800,000 olive trees.

“There are now 751,000 settlers in the West Bank, and the occupation government wants to raise their number to about one million settlers at the expense of our land, water and the lives of our children,” he affirmed.

The Prime Minister called on the European Union and the international community to put pressure on Israel to obtain “our right to hold elections in all Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem.”

A.D./M.K.