The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt and Turkiye on Tuesday strongly condemned Israel’s decision to designate land in the occupied West Bank as so-called “state land.”
It also condemned the approval of extensive land title registration and settlement procedures in the occupied West Bank for the first time since 1967.
They denounced the move as a “serious escalation aimed at accelerating illegal settlement activities, expropriating land, strengthening Israeli control, unlawfully applying Israeli sovereignty to the occupied Palestinian territories and violating the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.”
These measures are “serious violations of international law and international humanitarian law, in particular the Fourth Geneva Convention, and in violation of relevant UN Security Council resolutions, in particular resolution 2334,” the FM said in a statement.
“This judgment also contradicts the Advisory Opinion issued by the International Court of Justice on the legal consequences of Israeli policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which emphasizes the illegality of measures aimed at changing the legal, historical or demographic status of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the obligation to end the occupation, and the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force,” it added.
“This measure reflects an attempt to impose new legal and administrative realities aimed at tightening control over the occupied territories, thereby undermining the two-state solution, undermining prospects for establishing an independent and viable Palestinian state, and endangering the achievement of a just and inclusive peace in the region,” they warned.
The foreign ministers reiterated their “firm rejection of any unilateral measures aimed at changing the legal, demographic or historical status of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”
They stressed that these policies are a “dangerous escalation that will further increase tensions and instability in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the region as a whole.”
The leaders called on the international community to “accept its responsibility and take clear and decisive steps to halt these violations, ensure respect for international law, and protect the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, in particular their right to self-determination, an end to the occupation, and the establishment of an independent and sovereign state based on its 1967 borders with the capital, East Jerusalem.”
