RAMALLAH, Wednesday, January 10, 2024 (WAFA) – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates strongly condemned on Wednesday statements of the extremist Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, in which he once again rejected request by the US to transfer clearance fund to the Palestinian Authority, in response to what US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced in this regard.

In a press statement today, the Ministry considered Smotrich's statements a blatant challenge to the US administration, which translated its positions into real actions and pressures that force Israel to shift settlement and submit to the international will for peace.

It said that extremist Smotrich brags about supporting settlements, the terrorism of the colonialists, and their crimes with budgets and money, and provides them with political and legal protection, and who does not recognize the existence of the Palestinian people and their rights, and deals with them according to his three ill-fated options: surrender, killing, or displacement, adding that he also claims that this country is his country as he is known to be a staunch enemy of peace.

The Ministry said that he has no right and does not have any authority to interfere with the funds of the Palestinian people and the ways in which they are spent, except by way of further stealing and pirating them, noting that he also steals and occupies the land of the Palestinian people, confiscates their dignity and rights, and kidnaps the lives of their generations and their future.

The ministry wondered whether the 'US administration cannot yet force Israel to transfer the clearance fund of the Palestinian people, how can it force it to protect civilians, revive the peace process and recognize a state for the Palestinian people?'

K.T.