- Muslim nations reject Israeli sovereignty over Palestinian territory.
- Warn Israeli policies in West Bank would fuel violence, conflict.
- Urge global community to compel Israel to halt its escalation.
Pakistan, among eight Muslim countries, on Monday warned that Israel’s expansionist policies in the West Bank were aimed at enforcing “a new legal and administrative reality in the occupied West Bank”.
In a joint statement on Monday, the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar termed the Israeli illegal acts as “accelerating attempts at its illegal annexation and the displacement of the Palestinian people.”
“They reaffirmed that Israel has no sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territory,” read the statement issued by the Foreign Office spokesperson.
The statement follows an approval of a series of steps by Israel’s security cabinet on Sunday that would make it easier for settlers in the West Bank to buy land while granting Israeli authorities more enforcement powers over Palestinians.
Citing statements by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz, Israeli news sites Ynet and Haaretz said the measures included scrapping decades-old regulations that prevent Jewish private citizens from buying land in the West Bank.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the new measures were dangerous, illegal and tantamount to de-facto annexation.
The eight Muslim nations, in the joint statement, warned that continued expansionist Israeli policies in the West Bank would fuel violence and conflict in the region.
The ministers rejected Israel’s illegal actions, terming them a blatant violation of international law, which undermined the two-state solution.
They lambasted the illegal actions as “an assault on the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to realise their independent and sovereign state on the June 4, 1967, lines, with occupied Jerusalem as its capital”.
The statement said that such actions undermined the ongoing efforts for peace and stability in the region, affirming that these illegal measures in the occupied West Bank “were null and void”.
The Israeli policies, they said, also constituted a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions, particularly Resolution 2334, which condemned all Israeli measures aimed at altering the demographic status of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem.
The ministers noted that the 2024 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice had found that Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territory and its continued presence were illegal.
They urged the international community to fulfil its legal and moral responsibilities and to compel Israel to halt its dangerous escalation in the occupied area and the inciting statements of its officials.
They stressed that the fulfilment of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and statehood remained the only path to achieving just and comprehensive peace in the region.
