Palestine on Friday accused Israel of implementing a “de facto annexation” of the occupied West Bank, citing an in depth community of army checkpoints as a software to fragment the territory and undermine hopes for a two-state answer.
In a strongly worded assertion, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry condemned the checkpoints and iron gates scattered throughout cities, cities, and governorates as “collective punishment” towards Palestinians.
“These checkpoints function as an apartheid system, turning the West Bank into isolated enclaves,” the ministry stated, noting that many gates are guarded by Israeli troopers and function solely throughout restricted hours, severely proscribing Palestinian motion.
The ministry accused Israel of pursuing a bigger plan to impose “spatial division” throughout the West Bank, facilitating the enlargement of Israeli settlements, isolating Jerusalem from its Palestinian environment, and annexing giant swaths of land.
Palestinians are compelled to navigate rugged, time-consuming routes inaccessible to common autos, whereas Israeli settlers use unique entry roads, the ministry added.
The assertion pledged continued efforts to show Israeli violations and referred to as on the worldwide neighborhood to finish its “double standards” relating to Palestinian rights. The ministry additionally urged speedy worldwide intervention to halt what it described as a marketing campaign of “ethnic cleansing” and annexation within the West Bank.
According to the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, a authorities company, the variety of everlasting and momentary checkpoints, together with iron gates and army boundaries dividing Palestinian territories, stands at 872. Since October 2023, 156 new iron gates have reportedly been put in.
Tensions have been excessive throughout the occupied West Bank amid Israel’s ongoing warfare on the Gaza Strip, which has killed greater than 43,700 individuals, largely girls and kids, since Oct. 7, 2023.
At least 783 Palestinians have been killed, and greater than 6,300 others injured, by Israeli military hearth within the West Bank throughout the identical interval, in accordance with the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The escalation follows a July opinion by the International Court of Justice, which declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land “illegal” and demanded the evacuation of all settlements within the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Source: www.dailysabah.com