Cairo, February 09 (QNA) - The Arab League has expressed its vehement condemnation and denunciation of the decisions endorsed by what is dubbed Israel's security cabinet, with the intent of making crucial and dangerous changes to the legal and administrative status quo of the occupied Palestinian territories, foremost among them the West Bank.
These measures represent an unprecedented escalation in the plan of annexation, colonization, and displacement, as well as pose a threat to the agreements signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel, particularly the Oslo Accords and the Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron, the Arab League stressed in a statement on Monday.
The statement added that lifting the confidentiality of land records, facilitating the seizure of private Palestinian properties, and transferring planning and licensing powers in the city of Hebron and around the Ibrahimi Mosque to the Israeli occupation authorities- constitute an egregious violation of international law and relevant instruments of international legitimacy, foremost among them United Nations Security Council resolutions, the Fourth Geneva Convention, the 1997 Hebron Protocol.
It stressed that these measures also breach the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which emphasized the importance of ending the Israeli occupation and the illegality of annexing occupied Palestinian territories.
Israel's imposition of so-called oversight and enforcement on Palestinian buildings in Areas A and B under the pretext of protecting heritage or archaeological sites constitutes a false legal cover for demolition, land seizure, and ethnic cleansing, and aims at eroding Palestinian presence and imposing irreversible colonial facts on the ground, the statement warned.
In addition, the Arab League cautioned against compromising the status of the Islamic and Christian sanctities, stressing its flat-out rejection of violating the Ibrahimi Mosque and imposing powers on it. It emphasized that the occupation authorities alone shoulder the responsibility for the persistent assault on sacred sites, with the intent to push the situation to the brink of a tinderbox.
These unilateral and unlawful measures wouldn't give any legitimacy to the Israeli occupation and wouldn't alter the fact that the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is an occupied Palestinian territory, the statement underscored.
The statement further underlined that all Israeli colonial activities are void and null and, consequently, have no legal effect, holding the Israeli government fully responsible for the perilous consequences of these escalatory policies.
The Arab League further called on the international community, particularly the Security Council, to assume their legal and moral responsibilities and take deterrent measures to cease these abuses and ensure protection for the Palestinian people, their territories, and sacred places.
In addition, the Arab League reiterated its enduring and supportive position for the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, foremost of which is their right to self-determination and the establishment of their independent and sovereign state on the June 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, based on the two-state solution resolution. (QNA)