Palestine Blasts ‘Foggy’ U.S. Position

Date: 27 February 2021 - 23:02

News ID: ۸۸۰۲۰

RAMALLAH (Dispatches) – Palestine on Saturday lashed out at U.S. position towards the Zionist-Palestinian conflict, calling it a "foggy” position.
"The U.S. foggy position encourages Israel to escalate its settlement policy,” the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) said in a statement.
"Israel exploits the U.S. position to implement what had been already agreed upon between the former U.S. administration and Israel concerning settlement,” the statement said, referring to the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim in the West Bank overlooking the E1 area.
The E1 area is an area of the West Bank within the municipal boundary of the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. It is located adjacent to and northeast of East al-Quds and to the west of Ma’ale Adumim.
"The current administration is not putting the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the top of its priorities,” the PLO statement said.
It said Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week instructed the start of implementing the settlement project in E1 area "to establish a new status quo on the ground.”
"The settlement project in E1 area is part of the actual Israeli annexation plan of large parts of the West Bank,” it added.
Meanwhile, the United Nations and European members of the Security Council on Friday called on the occupying regime to stop demolitions of Bedouin settlements in the Jordan Valley, and for humanitarian access to the community living in Humsa Al-Baqaia.
In a joint statement at the end of a monthly session of the Security Council on the conflict in the Middle East, Estonia, France, Ireland, Norway and the United Kingdom said they were "deeply concerned at the recent repeated demolitions and confiscation of items, including of EU- and donor-funded structures carried out by Israeli authorities at Humsa Al-Baqaia in the Jordan Valley.”
It said the concern was also focused on the 70 people or so living in the Bedouin community, including 41 children.
"We reiterate our call on Israel to halt demolitions and confiscations,” the statement said.
"We further call on Israel to allow full, sustained and unimpeded humanitarian access to the community in Humsa Al-Baqaia.”
Humsa al-Baqia sits in the Jordan Valley, a fertile and strategic patch of land that runs from Lake Tiberias to the Dead Sea, which has emerged as a flashpoint in the struggle over the West Bank.
The Jordan Valley is home to approximately 60,000 Palestinians, according to the UN, but nearly 90 percent of the land is part of what is known as Area C, the three-fifths of the West Bank that is under complete Zionist regime occupation.