25 dec 2016
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) welcomes the UN Security Council resolution yesterday condemning the Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). PCHR believes this is a significant resolution that has been waited for.
Moreover, PCHR calls for a prompt and effective action to restore confidence in the rule of the law and put an end to the prolonged Israeli challenge and denial of the international law and to the inherent impunity enjoyed by Israel for decades.
The Security Council adopted a resolution on Friday, 23 December 2016, demanding an end to Israeli settlement construction in the oPt. The resolution, put forward by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal, underlined that it would not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to occupied Jerusalem.
This resolution was taken in view of the ongoing settlement activities implemented by Israel in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, and on the verge of the 50th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian and Arab territory in 1967.
Throughout five decades, Israel has tightened its control on the West Bank and seized over 60% of it in favor of the Israeli settlements and annexation wall.
In addition, Israel has turned the Palestinian cities and villages into cantons due to the establishment of hundreds of military checkpoints tearing the West Bank apart.
Israel has further intensified its settlement activities, including efforts to create Jewish majority in occupied Jerusalem.
The Israeli practices have systematically created a new pattern of apartheid, where Israeli settlers are privileged and supported by their government but Palestinians are denied their basic human rights.
The Security Council resolution yesterday put the Palestinian cause politically and legally back on track after 23 years of a dead peace process that has been employed by Israel to tighten its control on the oPt while the whole world is watching silently, especially the western countries that lost balance and sight, sacrificing the basic principles of the international law, including the international humanitarian and human rights laws.
The resolution stresses again that when the western countries, mainly the USA, lift up, even partially, the political and legal impunity given to Israel, the latter becomes exposed and fragile on the international political and legal levels. However, the Palestinian cause remains a just cause when the law is impartially employed in the conflict.
PCHR hopes this resolution will underpin the latest efforts exerted before the International Criminal Court that initiated a preliminary examination on the situation in Palestine in January 2015.
It is hoped also that Fatou Bensouda, the ICC Prosecutor, will take a positive decision towards initiating a criminal investigation in the situation in Palestine within the coming months.
Moreover, PCHR calls for a prompt and effective action to restore confidence in the rule of the law and put an end to the prolonged Israeli challenge and denial of the international law and to the inherent impunity enjoyed by Israel for decades.
The Security Council adopted a resolution on Friday, 23 December 2016, demanding an end to Israeli settlement construction in the oPt. The resolution, put forward by New Zealand, Malaysia, Venezuela and Senegal, underlined that it would not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to occupied Jerusalem.
This resolution was taken in view of the ongoing settlement activities implemented by Israel in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, and on the verge of the 50th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian and Arab territory in 1967.
Throughout five decades, Israel has tightened its control on the West Bank and seized over 60% of it in favor of the Israeli settlements and annexation wall.
In addition, Israel has turned the Palestinian cities and villages into cantons due to the establishment of hundreds of military checkpoints tearing the West Bank apart.
Israel has further intensified its settlement activities, including efforts to create Jewish majority in occupied Jerusalem.
The Israeli practices have systematically created a new pattern of apartheid, where Israeli settlers are privileged and supported by their government but Palestinians are denied their basic human rights.
The Security Council resolution yesterday put the Palestinian cause politically and legally back on track after 23 years of a dead peace process that has been employed by Israel to tighten its control on the oPt while the whole world is watching silently, especially the western countries that lost balance and sight, sacrificing the basic principles of the international law, including the international humanitarian and human rights laws.
The resolution stresses again that when the western countries, mainly the USA, lift up, even partially, the political and legal impunity given to Israel, the latter becomes exposed and fragile on the international political and legal levels. However, the Palestinian cause remains a just cause when the law is impartially employed in the conflict.
PCHR hopes this resolution will underpin the latest efforts exerted before the International Criminal Court that initiated a preliminary examination on the situation in Palestine in January 2015.
It is hoped also that Fatou Bensouda, the ICC Prosecutor, will take a positive decision towards initiating a criminal investigation in the situation in Palestine within the coming months.
The Local Planning and Building Committee of the West Jerusalem municipality is expected, next Wednesday, to approve about 5,600 illegal housing units in East Jerusalem settlements, according to Israeli Hayom daily.
The Israeli daily, in its Hebrew bulletin Sunday, said the foreseen decision comes in response to the United Nations Security Council’s resolution 2334, unanimously approved on Friday, which condemned Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and called for an end to settlement construction.
It said, according to WAFA correspondence, that the decision will approve the construction of 2,600 housing units in East Jerusalem settlement of Gilo, 2,600 others in Givat HaMatos, and 400 units in Ramat Shlomo settlement.
The Israeli daily, in its Hebrew bulletin Sunday, said the foreseen decision comes in response to the United Nations Security Council’s resolution 2334, unanimously approved on Friday, which condemned Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and called for an end to settlement construction.
It said, according to WAFA correspondence, that the decision will approve the construction of 2,600 housing units in East Jerusalem settlement of Gilo, 2,600 others in Givat HaMatos, and 400 units in Ramat Shlomo settlement.
Days after the UN Security Council approved a resolution affirming the illegality of Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory and called for their construction to cease, reports emerged that Israel is set to approve thousands of new settler units in occupied East Jerusalem.
The Local Planning and Building Committee of the Jerusalem municipality is expected to approve some 5,600 housing units in East Jerusalem for illegal settlements, the Hebrew version of daily newspaper Israel Hayom reported Sunday morning.
According to Israel Hayom, the move came as a direct response to the UNSC resolution 2334, that passed with unanimous approval from 14 council members, while the US abstained from voting.
The reports said that the committee will approve 2,600 housing units in the East Jerusalem settlement of Gilo, 2,600 others in Givat HaMatos, and 400 units in the Ramat Shlomo settlement.
In response to a request for comment on the reports, a spokesperson for the Jerusalem municipality only said: "Building Jerusalem is essential for the development of the city for the benefit of all residents, Jews and Arabs alike. The city will continue, with all of the tools at its disposal, to develop our capital in accordance with the city's master plan and planning and construction laws."
Israel Hayom also quoted deputy mayor of Jerusalem Meir Turjuman as saying that he “did not care” about the United Nations or “any other entity that tries to dictate to us what to do in Jerusalem.
The deputy mayor also reportedly said he was looking forward to the incoming Donald Trump administration to “make up for the shortage in construction during Obama's eight-year tenure."
Despite the US government under Barack Obama, having routinely condemned Israel’s settlement expansions, US officials have yet to take any concrete actions to end settlement building and instead inadvertently encouraged the enterprise through consistent inaction over Israel’s violation of international law and continued support of the Israeli government through inflated military aid packages.
The number of settlers living in the occupied West Bank has increased from 281,100 in 2008 to 385,900 in 2015, excluding those residing in occupied East Jerusalem. The Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ) estimates that between 500,000 and 600,000 Israeli settlers currently reside in West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements.
Meanwhile, plans for some 3,000 settler units were advanced since the start 2016 as of August according to Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now, including hundreds of existing units that were “retroactively legalized” after formerly being considered illegal under Israeli domestic law.
Israeli leadership has reacted with outrage and defiance since the UNSC approved the resolution, which states that settlements have "no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law," and call on the nations of the world "to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel "would not abide by the terms" of the "shameful anti-Israel resolution," and reportedly summoned the ambassadors of the UN Security Council member states to personally reprimand each of them on Christmas day.
Meanwhile, Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday morning again called for the annexation of the illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim as well as all of Area C in the West Bank -- the more than 60 percent of the territory currently under full Israeli military and civil control.
Maale Adumim, located just seven kilometers east of Jerusalem, is the third largest settlement in population size, that many Israelis consider it an Israeli city that would remain under Israeli control in any final status agreement reached with Palestinians as part of a two-state solution.
Human rights groups and international leaders have strongly condemned Israel’s settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, claiming it is a strategic maneuver to prevent the establishment of a contiguous, independent Palestinian state by changing the facts on the ground, while members of Israel's parliament have repeatedly come forward announcing their support for annexing Area C.
A recent report by human rights group B'Tselem argued that under the guise of a "temporary military occupation," Israel has been "using the land as its own: robbing land, exploiting the area’s natural resources for its own benefit and establishing permanent settlements," estimating that Israel had dispossessed Palestinians from some 200,000 hectares (494,211 acres) of lands in the occupied Palestinian territory over the years.
B’Tselem highlighted the “key role” of Israeli settlers in further isolating Palestinians from their lands, either through the establishment of outposts officially unrecognized by the Israeli government, or through the regular use of violence or threats of violence against Palestinians.
B’Tselem argued that settlers acted as “envoys” of Israel in pushing land grabs in the occupied Palestinian territory, allowing the government to officially detach themselves from the settlers’ violent and illegal actions, while avoiding or blocking any legal penalties that could be imposed on the settlers, except in the most extreme of cases.
"The state helps settlers operate as a mechanism for dispossession in Palestinian space -- settlers serving as a means purportedly not under state control, and settlers also use serious violence against Palestinian residents,” the group explained.
The movement of Israeli settlers taking over Palestinian land, and further displacing the local Palestinian population has been a "stable" Israeli policy since the takeover of the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1967, B'Tselem concluded, underscoring that all "Israeli legislative, legal, planning, funding, and defense bodies" have played an active role in the dispossession of Palestinians from their lands.
The Local Planning and Building Committee of the Jerusalem municipality is expected to approve some 5,600 housing units in East Jerusalem for illegal settlements, the Hebrew version of daily newspaper Israel Hayom reported Sunday morning.
According to Israel Hayom, the move came as a direct response to the UNSC resolution 2334, that passed with unanimous approval from 14 council members, while the US abstained from voting.
The reports said that the committee will approve 2,600 housing units in the East Jerusalem settlement of Gilo, 2,600 others in Givat HaMatos, and 400 units in the Ramat Shlomo settlement.
In response to a request for comment on the reports, a spokesperson for the Jerusalem municipality only said: "Building Jerusalem is essential for the development of the city for the benefit of all residents, Jews and Arabs alike. The city will continue, with all of the tools at its disposal, to develop our capital in accordance with the city's master plan and planning and construction laws."
Israel Hayom also quoted deputy mayor of Jerusalem Meir Turjuman as saying that he “did not care” about the United Nations or “any other entity that tries to dictate to us what to do in Jerusalem.
The deputy mayor also reportedly said he was looking forward to the incoming Donald Trump administration to “make up for the shortage in construction during Obama's eight-year tenure."
Despite the US government under Barack Obama, having routinely condemned Israel’s settlement expansions, US officials have yet to take any concrete actions to end settlement building and instead inadvertently encouraged the enterprise through consistent inaction over Israel’s violation of international law and continued support of the Israeli government through inflated military aid packages.
The number of settlers living in the occupied West Bank has increased from 281,100 in 2008 to 385,900 in 2015, excluding those residing in occupied East Jerusalem. The Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ) estimates that between 500,000 and 600,000 Israeli settlers currently reside in West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements.
Meanwhile, plans for some 3,000 settler units were advanced since the start 2016 as of August according to Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now, including hundreds of existing units that were “retroactively legalized” after formerly being considered illegal under Israeli domestic law.
Israeli leadership has reacted with outrage and defiance since the UNSC approved the resolution, which states that settlements have "no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law," and call on the nations of the world "to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel "would not abide by the terms" of the "shameful anti-Israel resolution," and reportedly summoned the ambassadors of the UN Security Council member states to personally reprimand each of them on Christmas day.
Meanwhile, Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday morning again called for the annexation of the illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim as well as all of Area C in the West Bank -- the more than 60 percent of the territory currently under full Israeli military and civil control.
Maale Adumim, located just seven kilometers east of Jerusalem, is the third largest settlement in population size, that many Israelis consider it an Israeli city that would remain under Israeli control in any final status agreement reached with Palestinians as part of a two-state solution.
Human rights groups and international leaders have strongly condemned Israel’s settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, claiming it is a strategic maneuver to prevent the establishment of a contiguous, independent Palestinian state by changing the facts on the ground, while members of Israel's parliament have repeatedly come forward announcing their support for annexing Area C.
A recent report by human rights group B'Tselem argued that under the guise of a "temporary military occupation," Israel has been "using the land as its own: robbing land, exploiting the area’s natural resources for its own benefit and establishing permanent settlements," estimating that Israel had dispossessed Palestinians from some 200,000 hectares (494,211 acres) of lands in the occupied Palestinian territory over the years.
B’Tselem highlighted the “key role” of Israeli settlers in further isolating Palestinians from their lands, either through the establishment of outposts officially unrecognized by the Israeli government, or through the regular use of violence or threats of violence against Palestinians.
B’Tselem argued that settlers acted as “envoys” of Israel in pushing land grabs in the occupied Palestinian territory, allowing the government to officially detach themselves from the settlers’ violent and illegal actions, while avoiding or blocking any legal penalties that could be imposed on the settlers, except in the most extreme of cases.
"The state helps settlers operate as a mechanism for dispossession in Palestinian space -- settlers serving as a means purportedly not under state control, and settlers also use serious violence against Palestinian residents,” the group explained.
The movement of Israeli settlers taking over Palestinian land, and further displacing the local Palestinian population has been a "stable" Israeli policy since the takeover of the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1967, B'Tselem concluded, underscoring that all "Israeli legislative, legal, planning, funding, and defense bodies" have played an active role in the dispossession of Palestinians from their lands.
The Israeli war minister Avigdor Lieberman on Sunday gave instructions to cease all political and civil ties with the Palestinian Authority (PA), except for security coordination.
According to the Yedioth Aharonot newspaper, Lieberman instructed the general coordinator of the government activities in the occupied Palestinian territories Yoav Mordechai to immediately halt all meetings and contacts with the Palestinian Authority (PA), chaired by Mahmoud Abbas, with the exception of security coordination.
Lieberman’s orders were released in response to the anti-settlement bid approved at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
The UNSC voted on Friday to adopt a resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity as illegal, and demanding that Israel "immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the 'occupied' Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem".
Fourteen out of the 15 voting members of the Council voted in favor of the resolution, none voted against it, and the United States chose to abstain.
According to the Yedioth Aharonot newspaper, Lieberman instructed the general coordinator of the government activities in the occupied Palestinian territories Yoav Mordechai to immediately halt all meetings and contacts with the Palestinian Authority (PA), chaired by Mahmoud Abbas, with the exception of security coordination.
Lieberman’s orders were released in response to the anti-settlement bid approved at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
The UNSC voted on Friday to adopt a resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity as illegal, and demanding that Israel "immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the 'occupied' Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem".
Fourteen out of the 15 voting members of the Council voted in favor of the resolution, none voted against it, and the United States chose to abstain.
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed on Saturday the Foreign Ministry to complete a re-evaluation of all contacts with the United Nations, including the Israeli funding of U.N. institutions and the presence of U.N. representatives in Israel.
Israel will re-assess its ties with the United Nations following the adoption by the Security Council of a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building, Netanyahu threatened.
Netanyahu made his comments following Friday's UN Security Council vote in favor of a resolution condemning Israel’s illegal settlement activity across the occupied Palestinian territories.
The decision was "shameful," the Prime Minister repeated multiple times.
"The Security Council decision calls Israeli land occupied and that is just shameful, the decision calls the Western Wall occupied land, it is shameful," Netanyahu further claimed.
Speaking of US President Barack Obama's choice to abstain from voting, Netanyahu said that the Obama administration went against Israel, backing out of the commitment it had made to stand for Israel.
"The decision not only does not help us make peace, it stands in the way of peace," stated Netanyahu.
Israel will not accept the decision and it will be cancelled, he warned, threatening to cease funding UN institutions.
Netanyahu has also instructed Israel's ambassadors in New Zealand and Senegal to return to Israel for consultations, his spokesman said on Friday, in response to the UN resolution on settlements.
The United Nations Security Council voted on Friday to adopt a resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity as illegal, and demanding that Israel "immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem".
Fourteen out of the 15 voting members of the Council voted in favor of the resolution, none voted against it, and the United States chose to abstain and did not cast its veto on the initiative.
The vote was originally scheduled to take place on Thursday, but in a dramatic turn of events, Egypt, which had introduced the draft resolution, succumbed to pressure and withdrew it just hours before it was due to be considered at the Security Council, as President-elect Donald Trump came out squarely against it, saying the resolution “should be vetoed.”
Israel will re-assess its ties with the United Nations following the adoption by the Security Council of a resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building, Netanyahu threatened.
Netanyahu made his comments following Friday's UN Security Council vote in favor of a resolution condemning Israel’s illegal settlement activity across the occupied Palestinian territories.
The decision was "shameful," the Prime Minister repeated multiple times.
"The Security Council decision calls Israeli land occupied and that is just shameful, the decision calls the Western Wall occupied land, it is shameful," Netanyahu further claimed.
Speaking of US President Barack Obama's choice to abstain from voting, Netanyahu said that the Obama administration went against Israel, backing out of the commitment it had made to stand for Israel.
"The decision not only does not help us make peace, it stands in the way of peace," stated Netanyahu.
Israel will not accept the decision and it will be cancelled, he warned, threatening to cease funding UN institutions.
Netanyahu has also instructed Israel's ambassadors in New Zealand and Senegal to return to Israel for consultations, his spokesman said on Friday, in response to the UN resolution on settlements.
The United Nations Security Council voted on Friday to adopt a resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity as illegal, and demanding that Israel "immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem".
Fourteen out of the 15 voting members of the Council voted in favor of the resolution, none voted against it, and the United States chose to abstain and did not cast its veto on the initiative.
The vote was originally scheduled to take place on Thursday, but in a dramatic turn of events, Egypt, which had introduced the draft resolution, succumbed to pressure and withdrew it just hours before it was due to be considered at the Security Council, as President-elect Donald Trump came out squarely against it, saying the resolution “should be vetoed.”
The International Popular Commission for the Support of Gaza has said that the UN Security Council’s adoption of a resolution on Israel’s settlement construction entails taking swift steps to enforce it and restore the lands of settlements to the Palestinian people.
In press remarks on Saturday, head of the commission Issam Yousef called on the Arab and Islamic states to align themselves with the Palestinian cause and help the Palestinian people end the occupation of their land.
“All the Arab countries that Israel occupied their territories fought to regain them, and this is considered allegiance to the homeland, so no one should deprive the Palestinians of their right to have their homeland back,” Yousef said.
He emphasized that resisting the occupation is a legitimate right for any occupied nation and it is guaranteed by relevant UN resolutions.
He urged the Egyptian leadership to support the Palestinian people and their rights, affirming that this support would be a bulwark for Egypt and the Arab world.
“Egypt still holds many keys that would help end the blockade on Gaza and reunite the Palestinian people, before it is too late,” he said.
In press remarks on Saturday, head of the commission Issam Yousef called on the Arab and Islamic states to align themselves with the Palestinian cause and help the Palestinian people end the occupation of their land.
“All the Arab countries that Israel occupied their territories fought to regain them, and this is considered allegiance to the homeland, so no one should deprive the Palestinians of their right to have their homeland back,” Yousef said.
He emphasized that resisting the occupation is a legitimate right for any occupied nation and it is guaranteed by relevant UN resolutions.
He urged the Egyptian leadership to support the Palestinian people and their rights, affirming that this support would be a bulwark for Egypt and the Arab world.
“Egypt still holds many keys that would help end the blockade on Gaza and reunite the Palestinian people, before it is too late,” he said.
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