WEST BANK (Dispatches) – Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Riyad al-Maliki says the Palestinian leadership is considering the United Nations Security Council’s action against Zionist settlement activities in the occupied territories.
The remarks came after the occupying regime announced it is set to build 730 new settler units in East Al-Quds.
Maliki told the Arabic-language Voice of Palestine radio station that Palestine is going to urge the world body to assume its responsibilities concerning Zionist regime policies of land expropriation and settlements expansions, particularly the UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which was adopted on December 23, 2016, and calls on world states to distinguish in their dealings between Zionist communities and Palestinian lands occupied by the regime.
He added that Palestinian diplomats continue to draw the international community’s attention to the regime’s occupation and violation of Palestinian rights at the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, the UN Human Rights Council and all relevant institutions.
“The rise in settlement construction activities by the Israeli regime is a very dangerous sign. We have discussed the matter with the U.S. administration as well as authorities from various countries,” the Palestinian foreign minister pointed out.
He went on to say that the Palestinian initiatives at the third meeting of the Arab ministerial committee in Jordan regarding the development of an Arab plan to save Al-Quds were approved.
Maliki expressed hope that the plan will also be approved at the forthcoming foreign ministerial meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Pakistan to confront the regime’s attempts to Judaize Al-Quds.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas also condemned the decision of occupying regime authorities to build 730 new units in the illegal settlement of Pesgat Ze’ev in the occupied East Al-Quds.
He urged “the international community to pressure Israel to stop its unilateral measures that will drag the region into more tensions,” stressing that “Al-Quds, with its Islamic and Christian holy sites and neighborhoods, is an untouchable red line.”
Abbas warned that the Zionist regime is “exploiting the international community’s preoccupation with the Russo-Ukrainian crisis to advance its settlement projects and steal more Palestinian land.”
About 600,000 Zionists live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Al-Quds. All settlements are illegal under the international law as they are built on occupied land.