MOSCOW, September 4 (RIA Novosti) - Israel should immediately reverse its illegal appropriation of land in the occupied West Bank south of Jerusalem, Human Rights Watch said in a statement published on its website Thursday.
“Israeli officials are showing utter contempt for international law that prohibits settlements in occupied territory and protects Palestinians’ land rights,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said. “This is another reminder why the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, should immediately grant the International Criminal Court jurisdiction.”
The court’s statute prohibits the expropriation of property unless imperative as a matter of military necessity.
On Monday UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon criticized Israel over its seizing of West Bank land near Bethlehem.
“The seizure of such a large swathe of land risks paving the way for further settlement activity, which – as the United Nations has reiterated on many occasions – is illegal under international law and runs totally counter to the pursuit of a two-state solution,” Ban said.
Echoing global reaction, the US State Department called on Israel to reverse its plan to appropriate the land.
“We are deeply concerned about the declaration of a large area as ‘state land’ to be used for expanded settlement building,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement Tuesday.
On Monday, the Israeli Civil Administration, a military department with authority over land use in the West Bank, declared the appropriation of 3,977 dunams (400 hectares) of land belonging to five Palestinian villages.
In August, the Israeli Cabinet announced a decision to appropriate about 400 hectares, without compensation to Palestinians, in response to the kidnappings and killings of three Israeli teenagers near settlements in the same area.
