Press Release
ICSPR The Israeli Government decision to expand municipal powers in Hebron violates the principle of inadmissibility of annexation of occupied territory
The International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights ICSPR followed with deep concern the decision of Avigdor Lieberman, the Defense Minister of Israel, on Wednesday 30 August 2017, order to transfer municipal powers from the Palestinian Authority to the Hebron municipal committee under the jurisdiction of Israel’s Ministry of Interior, according to this new and dangerous decision a council will be formed to represent the settlers in Hebron, and to provides an independent municipality services, allowing the settlers to obtain services that include water and municipal services directly from the Israeli civil administration (civil arm of the Israeli Defense Ministry). According to the Israeli newspaper “Jerusalem Post”.
The Israeli decision referred above, is apparently in the framework of the effective implementation of the land settlement law, in February 2017, which means the robbery and annexation of Palestinian land for Israeli settlement project in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, through legitimize the settlement units deployed in different areas in the region classified as (c), and to ensure the annexation of the state of the Israeli military occupation, that reflecting the Israeli recklessness towards all international resolutions in particular the recent decision of the World Heritage Committee at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization “UNESCO ” that declare the old city of Hebron a globally threatened legacy.
International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights ICSPR consider that this resolution constitutes a clear violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and a departure from the principle of the inadmissibility of the annexation of occupied territories by the occupying power, where this principle is regarded as the most important principle of the established principles of international law that regulates the relationship between the occupying power and the occupied territory as well as the Israeli decision constitutes a flagrant violation of the Rome Statute as this law confiscating private land by the occupying power and grant it to their citizens.
International Commission to Support Palestinian Rights ICSPR strongly condemns this unprecedented decision, considering that the international and regional community’s silence means giving Israel the green light to implement new international crime, therefore; ICSPR calls for the following:
ICSPR emphasizes that the Israeli war Minister’s decision Avigdor Lieberman is a very serious step aimed to strengthen the Israeli settlement project, and it violates the international standards and human rights, and it considered as an Israeli defiance of the resolutions of the international community, expressed in more than one occasion, in particular the Security Council resolution (2234) on 23 December 2016 that confirm the illegality of Israeli settlements.
ICSPR consider the settlement activities and Israeli consolidation procedures in the occupied Palestinian territories a war crime according to the International Humanitarian Law.
ICSPR calls the international organizations in particular the United Nations, the Security Council and regional organizations, particularly the Arabic League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the need for immediate intervention in order to issue an immediate decision to stop this resolution and its ramifications and applications.
ICSPR invites the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their legal obligations to ensure Israel’s respect of the Convention.
ICSPR is demanding the Palestinian leadership to take action on national, international and diplomatic level to address this decision, including accounting the occupation and to refer the settlement case to the Internationals Criminal Court, and raise the level of Palestinian demands to dismantle settlements and not only claiming of its illegality.
ICSPR Urges the Palestinian masses to defend their property and rights and to activate all forms of internationally recognized resistance as a right of peoples under occupation to confront the Israeli settlement activities and settlers.
