Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, stated that the Palestinian Authority will act on the international level to stop Israel’s illegal settlement construction and expansion activities, and stated that there are 63 UN organizations that the Palestinians can now join.Abbas said that Israel must stop all of its illegal settlement activities, especially its E1 project that aims at linking occupied East Jerusalem with the Maale Adumim illegal settlement bloc.
He added that the several countries have asked the Palestinians not to head to the International Criminal Court to sue Israel for its illegal settlement activities, and violations against the Palestinian people, but also stated that the Palestinian Authority reserves this right should Israel decide to go ahead with its E1 project, especially since this project will isolate East Jerusalem, its Palestinian communities and towns, will divide the West Bank, and block any Palestinian geographical contiguity.
“Should Israel choose to implement the E1 project, the two-state solution will have no chances of survival”, Abbas stated, “Therefore, we reserve the right to head to different international organizations to stop Israel”.
There are more than 35.000 Jewish settlers living in Maale Adumim, Israel wants to connect it to the illegal settlements and illegal settlement outposts in occupied East Jerusalem; the E1 project is planned to be constructed on 12 square/kilometers between Jerusalem, the Jordan Valley and Jericho, the Bokra Net Arabic news website reported.
Abbas further stated that, after the Palestinians managed to obtain a nonmember observer state status at the UN General Assembly, the international community recognized Palestine as an occupied state.
“Therefore we became under the jurisdiction of the Fourth Geneva Convention, as the occupied territories are now considered part of an occupied state, and not disputed territories as Israel tries to claim, the convention prohibits occupiers from changing the demography of occupied territories.”
The Palestinian President Added that settlements are illegal, illegitimate and violate International Law, and that Jerusalem is also an occupied city, and the center of the conflict.
“But Israel is isolating it from the rest of the Palestinian territories, it is also splitting the West Bank into two parts, this will never be acceptable, we will head to the Security Council to stop these violations, we will do whatever we can on the international level to stop Israel’s settlement activities and its ongoing violations.”
