ICSPR Warns of the Dangers of Israeli Occupation Decisions and Calls for Urgent International and Arab Action

Date: February 9, 2025

Press Release

ICSPR Warns of the Dangers of Israeli Occupation Decisions and Calls for Urgent International and Arab Action

The International Commission to Support the Rights of the Palestinian People (ICSPR) is following with deep concern the recent series of Israeli decisions initiated by Bezalel Smotrich and Israel Katz. These measures represent a fundamental shift in the occupation’s policy since 1967, moving from administering the Palestinian territory as a temporary occupation toward imposing de facto and comprehensive sovereignty over the West Bank, including Areas (A) and (B) and East Jerusalem. This includes accelerating settlement expansion, constructing thousands of housing units, opening tunnels in Silwan, and transferring the powers of Palestinian municipalities to the Israeli Civil Administration—thereby eliminating any political horizon for a settlement and destroying the prospects for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

ICSPR affirms that publicly opening land registries, cancelling the Jordanian law that prohibited the sale of land to non-Arabs, lifting restrictions on settlers’ land purchases, imposing financial penalties on Palestinians under the pretext of “environmental pollution,” and targeting factories and quarries together form a systematic policy of forced transfer and the imposition of illegal occupation realities. These measures violate international humanitarian law, the Geneva Conventions, United Nations Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, and the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice. They aim to turn the West Bank into a settlement market for the seizure of Palestinian property through money, pressure, and forgery.

ICSPR believes that transferring planning and construction powers in the Ibrahimi Mosque and the Jewish Quarter in Hebron, and establishing special settlement administrations around Rachel’s Tomb and Bethlehem, effectively removes these areas from any Palestinian sovereignty and transforms them into settlement municipalities protected by the army. Israeli policies also include the forced emptying of camps, home demolitions, arbitrary arrests, field executions, and restrictions on the work of UNRWA, leading to forced demographic change and the fragmentation of Palestinian geography into isolated cantons without continuity or sovereignty.

ICSPR stresses that what is taking place in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity, and constitutes a continuation of a genocidal war that includes widespread killing, comprehensive destruction of civilian infrastructure, systematic siege and starvation, and obstruction of mediators’ efforts. This places an urgent responsibility on the international community to act and hold perpetrators accountable, including by supporting the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court.

ICSPR further asserts that the Israeli government’s actions amount to the cancellation of the Oslo Accords and their replacement with a system of permanent administrative annexation without formal declaration, effectively stripping any real meaning from self-rule while Israel imposes legal, administrative, and security sovereignty over Palestinian areas. This poses a serious threat to regional and international peace and security. International silence is tantamount to complicity and legally entrenches the undermining of the international order based on international law and relevant UN resolutions on Palestine.

ICSPR calls on the Palestinian leadership to redefine its relationship with the Israeli occupation, internationalize the conflict, activate a comprehensive legal path to prosecute annexation and settlement policies, protect land and land registry records, prevent forced sales and forgery, strengthen the resilience of the population, restore national unity, and adopt an integrated national plan to confront the occupation politically, legally, and popularly.

ICSPR calls on the League of Arab States and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to take immediate action to prevent the consolidation of annexation and Judaization policies, support Palestinian rights to land and sovereignty, and form an Arab–international barrier against Israeli crimes and against plans of displacement, annexation, and genocide.

ICSPR urges the United Nations, including the General Assembly and the Security Council, to activate mechanisms for the protection of civilians and to take urgent measures, including suspending Israel’s membership, imposing sanctions, and deploying international protection forces in the Palestinian territories to safeguard civilians and civilian objects.

ICSPR calls on the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions to convene an urgent meeting to fulfill their legal and moral responsibilities, work to protect Palestinian civilians and territory, ensure respect for international law, and take action to hold occupation leaders accountable and prevent impunity.

ICSPR calls on the international community to form an international coalition comprising Arab and Islamic states, the European Union, Russia, China, and the African Union to ensure joint action to confront plans aimed at liquidating the Palestinian cause, pressure Israel and the United States to halt settlement, annexation, and Judaization, stop the genocide, lift the siege on Gaza, allow reconstruction without political or security conditions, and link any cooperation with the occupation to its compliance with international law.