Palestinian Cabinet Calls for Steps to Stop Israel's Settlement "Onslaught"

RAMALLAH  (NNN-WAFA) -- The Palestinian cabinet has called on members of the United Nations Security Council and other powers to put a stop to Israel’s settlement policy, which it described as “onslaught” that aims to undermine efforts to form a Palestinian state.

It condemned in a statement issued after its weekly cabinet meeting on Wednesday “the unprecedented settlement onslaught on our land, particularly the Israeli government’s decision to build thousands of settlement units in Jerusalem and Bethlehem with the intent of completing the isolation of the capital from the rest of its natural surroundings and further strangling and isolating Bethlehem.”

It condemned as well an Israeli government decision to grant university status to a college in the illegal settlement of Ariel in the West Bank.

It stressed that “the danger of this onslaught lies in its aim to undermine the possibility of materializing the state of Palestine on the ground.”

The cabinet welcomed the position of the 14 member states of the Security Council as well as regional groups at the United Nations “who unanimously rejected settlements and settlement construction.”

It said the settlements are “a flagrant violation of the rules of international law as well as a violation of Israel’s legal obligations and responsibilities as an occupying power towards our people, their rights and occupied land in accordance with international norms.”

The cabinet called on those countries “to assume their legal and political responsibilities and translate these valuable positions into practical steps that compel Israel to end these dangerous and destructive violations in a way that also accelerates at the same time ending the occupation and enabling our people to exercise self-determination and to materialize the state on the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital.” -- NNN-WAFA