The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has condemned an upsurge in Israeli settler attacks against Palestinian land and property across the occupied West Bank. RNA - “The rise in settlement organizations' attacks against Palestinians is a direct result of the encouragement they receive from the political leadership in Israel,” the ministry said in a statement released on Sunday.
The statement added, “Israel seeks to intimidate Palestinians and prevent them from reaching their targeted lands,” pointing to the Israeli regime’s attempts to seize and annex Palestinian lands to expand its settlements.
The ministry called on the international community to condemn the crimes being perpetrated by Israeli settlers and military forces, and compel the Tel Aviv regime to obey the relevant UN resolutions, especially Resolution 2334.
Earlier in the day, Israeli settlers broke the windshields of about 20 Palestinian-owned cars in the northern West Bank town of Huwara.
Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian Authority official in charge of monitoring Israel's settlement expansion activities, said the extremists attacked the vehicles with rocks.
He added that local residents tried to fend off the settlers, who in return fired indiscriminate shots at them. No injuries were reported among the Palestinian civilians.
More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.
The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.
Less than a month before US President Donald Trump took office, the Security Council in December 2016 adopted Resolution 2334, calling on Israel to “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem” al-Quds.
The last round of Israeli-Palestinian talks collapsed in 2014. Among the major sticking points in those negotiations was Israel’s continued settlement expansion on Palestinian territories.
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