RAMALLAH, March 25, 2026 (WAFA) – The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates welcomed the report issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Syrian Golan, noting that its findings comprehensively document the escalation of serious Israeli violations of international law during the reporting period, including the crime of illegal settlement expansion.
In a statement issued on Wednesday evening, the ministry said the report highlights Israel’s systematic policies and practices aimed at altering the demographic and geographic character of the occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, through the expansion of illegal settlements, land appropriation, demolition and forced displacement, and the imposition of a coercive environment intended to achieve ethnic cleansing.
The ministry added that the report emphasizes the unprecedented acceleration of illegal Israeli settlement expansion, including the approval of thousands of settlement units, the establishment of new settlement outposts, and the expansion of infrastructure designed to consolidate Israeli control over the occupied Palestinian Territory, undermining the establishment of a geographically contiguous and independent State of Palestine.
The report also notes the continued use by the Israeli occupation government of legal and administrative mechanisms, including declaring Palestinian lands as “state land” and imposing discriminatory planning and construction restrictions, aimed at seizing additional Palestinian land and enforcing Israeli sovereignty, said the ministry.
The report, the ministry added, also highlights a troubling increase in the organized nature of colonist militia attacks against the Palestinian people and their property, noting that the assaults occur systematically, including physical attacks, raids on Palestinian villages and towns, arson of homes and vehicles, and restrictions on farmers’ access to their lands, particularly during planting and harvest seasons. These actions contribute to the displacement of the indigenous population and the imposition of coercive facts on the ground, it added.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates affirmed that colonists’ crimes and attacks continue amid a clear absence of legal accountability and a persistent policy of impunity, often carried out under the protection of Israeli occupation forces.
It also stressed that the report reflects a dangerous reality of consolidating the illegal annexation of the occupied Palestinian Territory and violating the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination.
The ministry underscored the legal and moral responsibility of the international community to protect the Palestinian people and their land, calling for practical and effective measures to halt Israeli occupation actions and crimes, including population transfers, land confiscation, demolition operations, and forced displacement.
It further urged the international community to act urgently to hold Israel, the occupying power, accountable; immediately halt all settlement activities and related violations; ensure that all states do not recognize the illegal situation resulting from the occupation; and to from providing any form of support that sustains it, including the provision of weapons and equipment to Israel that could be used to commit further crimes against the Palestinian people.
T.R.
