RAMALLAH, February 12, 2018 (WAFA) - The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and expatriates said Israeli settlers aggression reflects an international failure to thwart settlement construction.

The ministry issued a statement condemning  Israeli settlers‘ continuous aggression against Palestinian citizens and their properties, under the protection of the occupation forces.

 The ministry condemned the escalation of settlers and occupation forces’ incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque, the dredging of Jenin’s town of Burqin by settlers, and the construction of mobile homes near Za‘tara checkpoint, south of Nablus, in preparation for the establishment of a new settlement outpost.

It also denounced the occupation forces’ attack and siege, this morning, on Tqou High School, east of Bethlehem.

The Ministry affirmed that armed settler militia’s attacks are accompanied by a continued closure and siege carried by Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian citizens in an open and continuous aggression targeting the Palestinian national and humanitarian presence in the occupied Palestinian territories.

This policy is based on the expansion and gradual annexation of designated areas (c), the isolation of Palestinian citizens in communities and cantons, the denial of their community’s right to normal expansion and growth, the forced displacement of Palestinian citizens from occupied Jerusalem and designated areas (c), and the suppression of peaceful Palestinian demonstrations against the occupation and colonization, said the statement.

“The Ministry believes that the Israeli government bears responsibility for this policy and its consequences, and stresses the inability of the unimplemented UN resolutions, and statements of condemnation to suspend and freeze the construction of settlements.”

The ministry added that this failure encourages the right and the extreme right in Israel to continue consecrating the occupation and the colonization while developing an apartheid regime in Palestine.

T.R.