Israeli authorities have banned Palestinians from working in illegal Israeli settlements for the second day in a row south of Hebron and in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.
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“Settlement activities are a violation of worldwide law and run counter to the public pronouncements of the government of Israel supporting a two-state solution to the conflict”, Ban said in a statement.
“Israel has made every possible effort in order to make sure that the European Union foreign ministers’ declaration would not be totally biased and anti-Israeli”.
He noted that Israel restricts Palestinian economic development in the West Bank and, despite its recent indictment against the suspects in a deadly arson attack against a Palestinians family, bemoaned what he called an inadequate response to settler violence. Shin Bet said in a statement that Hezbollah is trying to “ride the wave” of ongoing Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
The secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Saeb Erekat, told Newsweek that Palestine plans to submit a resolution to the U.N. Security Council “very soon”, noting that the whole world is asking Israel to stop settlements and confiscation of land. They added that Israel’s defense of its right to protect itself from terror is part of a campaign to negate the legitimacy of worldwide criticism.
Violence in the area continued on Monday when another Palestinian teenager reportedly stabbed a pregnant Israeli woman at a settlement near Bethlehem.
While Kerry acknowledged that Netanyahu had stated his commitment to a two-state solution, he said it was “important that that not become a slogan, not become a throwaway phrase – that it becomes a policy”.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahson said that “Israel is concerned with this one-sided, politicized report” and claimed that Israeli settlements provide employment for Palestinian workers.
“If these employers truly cared about the financial wellbeing of Palestinians, they should be lobbying their own government to lift its discriminatory restrictions and end its settlement policies”, she said. “Yet separation will become more and more hard if Israel plans to continue to expand the footprint of settlements”.
The last four months have seen near-daily Palestinian attacks on Israelis that have killed more than 25 people.
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In his speech, the ambassador also said the Obama administration was “perplexed by Israel’s strategy on settlements”.
