RAMALLAH, Tuesday, June 13, 2023 (WAFA) - The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates today called on the international community and the US administration who spoke out strongly against Israeli settlement expansion plans not to be satisfied with only statements of condemnation and to go further and impose sanctions and take other punitive measures against Israel.
It said in a statement that the Palestinian people pay a heavy price every day as a result of settler violence and the escalation in crimes committed by the occupation forces against defenseless civilians, their land, property and homes.
The Ministry said the occupying power, Israel, employs all its capabilities to fight the Palestinian presence in Area C, which makes two-thirds of the area of the occupied West Bank, in order to impose its control over it and build settlements as part of its creeping annexation of the occupied territories, divide the West Bank, and kill any chance for establishing the independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
It said that it is following these developments with international courts, foremost of which is the International Criminal Court, and with countries at the bilateral level and with various UN officials and frameworks, expressing its deep dissatisfaction with the low level of international reactions towards the annexation of the West Bank, imposing more Israeli laws on it, and building more settlement units there.
The Ministry said these responses indicate double standards and the absence of a will to uphold international law and relevant UN resolutions, and that despite the repeated international and American positions rejecting settlements and illegal unilateral Israeli measures, the occupying state has not ceased to continue in this policy as long as it does not affect its relationship with those countries and there are no pressure or deterrent sanctions that threaten the Israeli interests that would force it to submit to the will of the international community.
It said that “expressing concern or just not so serious rejection of the violations and crimes of the occupation and its settlers or directing the international demand to both sides are means to escape from bearing international responsibility for the suffering of the Palestinian people, and unjust and biased equality between the victim and the executioner while belittling the crimes of the occupation and their repercussions, and an expression of the absence of international desire to applying international law to the situation in occupied Palestine. While stating these positions, the occupying state continues to announce more settlement construction in defiance of international law and the United Nations and its resolutions.”
M.K.
