RAMALLAH, September 8, 2026 (WAFA) – The Palestinian Presidency welcomed the joint statement issued by the foreign ministers of France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, and Sweden on protecting the two-state solution and rejecting colonial settlement expansion, annexation, and the forced displacement of the Palestinian people, as well as banning trade with Israeli colonial settlements.
The Presidency welcomed the determination of these countries to impose national restrictions on trade in goods with Israeli colonial settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territory and to support similar measures at the European level, describing the move as an important practical step toward holding the colonial settlement system accountable and affirming the non-recognition of the illegal situation created by the occupation.
The Presidency stressed that Israel’s unacceptable decision to publish tenders for the implementation of the so-called E1 colonial plan, alongside colonial settlement expansion, the escalation of terrorist colonists’ attacks, and the transfer of additional powers in the occupied West Bank, constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and international legitimacy resolutions.
It warned that these measures pose a direct threat to the territorial integrity of Palestinian land, seek to entrench annexation, and undermine the prospects for realizing an independent State of Palestine.
The Presidency called on the countries that signed the statement, the European Union, and the international community as a whole to swiftly translate these positions into binding measures, including banning dealings and trade with colonial settlements, imposing sanctions on extremist colonists and entities supporting them, and holding the Israeli government accountable for its ongoing violations.
The Presidency also called on the Israeli government to immediately and completely halt colonial settlement expansion, cancel the E1 plan, stop terrorist colonist attacks, provide international protection for the Palestinian people, and refrain from all measures aimed at annexing Palestinian land or forcibly displacing its population.
The Presidency reaffirmed the State of Palestine’s commitment to achieving a just and lasting peace based on international law, United Nations resolutions, and the New York Declaration, ensuring an end to the Israeli occupation and the realization of an independent, sovereign, and viable State of Palestine along the June 4, 1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as its capital, living in security and peace alongside the State of Israel.
T.R.
