RAMALLAH, September 3, 2017 (WAFA) - Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary General Saeb Erekat Sunday urged the international community, US, EU, Russia, and the UN to promptly intervene and take practical and concrete actions to abide Israel, the occupying power, to reverse its decision to give settlers residing in occupied Hebron formal authority to manage their own “municipal” affairs.

In a statement issued by the PLO official, Erekat called to put an end to illegal settlement construction and to hold Israel, along with its settlers, accountable for their systematic violations and crimes against the Palestinian people, which contradict International law.

Erekat considered this Israeli decision as an actual implementation of the ‘Greater Israel Project, through the actual demarcation, and legalization of illegal settlements and granting them sovereignty over the land of the occupied Palestinian state in flagrant violation of international laws and United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334.

The Greater Israel Project supports the Jewish settlement movement. It involves a policy of excluding Palestinians from Palestine leading to the eventual annexation of both the West Bank and Gaza to the State of Israel.

The Israeli army late Thursday signed an order to allow a council to provide services to the 1,000 settlers residing in an illegal settlement in the occupied city of Hebron. The council already existed but had no legal standing.

According to Anti-settlement Peace Now organization, which monitors settlement activities in the West Bank, granting official status to the Hebron settlers, the Israeli regime "is formalizing the apartheid system in the city.”

“This step... is another illustration of the policy of compensating the most extreme settlers for their illegal actions,” it said.

T.R.