The Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on Monday condemned the Israeli cabinet’s approval of measures aimed at strengthening Israel’s control over the occupied West Bank and weakening the Palestinian Authority’s already limited powers.
The OIC said that Israel’s “colonial settlement policy constitutes a war crime and a grave violation of international law and relevant United Nations resolutions, the foremost of which is Security Council Resolution 2334 and the legal opinions issued by the International Court of Justice.”
The United Nations reiterated its call on the international community, and in particular the Security Council, to “take responsibility and take immediate action to end all crimes and violations committed by Israel against the Palestinian people, their land and their sacred sites.”
The office of Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the decision to make it easier for Jewish settlers to force Palestinians to abandon their land, adding in a statement: “We will continue to bury the idea of a Palestinian state.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement that the decision was “dangerous” and “an open attempt by Israel to legitimize settlement expansion and land confiscation.” He called on the United States and the United Nations Security Council to intervene immediately.
The decision was announced just days before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to meet with US President Donald Trump in Washington on issues including Iran.
The measures announced Sunday include revoking a ban on the sale of West Bank land to Israeli Jews, declassifying West Bank land registry records to facilitate land acquisition, transferring construction projects in religious sites and other sensitive areas in the volatile city of Hebron to Israeli authorities, and allowing Israeli enforcement of environmental and archaeological issues in Palestinian-administered territory.
The measure would also reinstate a commission that would allow the Israeli state to make “active” land purchases within the territory. This is a “measure aimed at ensuring the availability of land for settlement for future generations.”
