RAMALLAH / Anadolu

Palestinian National Council Speaker Rawhi Fattouh said Monday that the settlement plan being implemented by the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality inside the Palestinian neighborhood of Um Lisun in East Jerusalem is 'a compound colonial crime aimed at ethnic cleansing.'

Fattouh added in a statement received by Anadolu that the Israeli project 'represents a new link in the chain of systematic seizure of Palestinian land, accelerating policies of Judaization, ethnic cleansing, and transfer aimed at re-engineering the demographic and geographic reality of occupied Jerusalem.'

He added that 'establishing the largest settlement cluster inside a populated Palestinian neighborhood in an area containing about 800 homes inhabited by Jerusalemite citizens is a compound colonial crime and a grave violation of the provisions of international humanitarian law.'

Fattouh stressed that 'the provisions of international law have affirmed the illegality of all Israeli measures aimed at changing the character of Jerusalem, its legal status, and its demographic composition.'

He also warned that these policies come 'within the framework of a systematic Israeli strategy to impose facts on the ground by force and undermine any possibility of establishing an independent Palestinian state.'

Fattouh considered that 'the shameful international silence regarding this colonial escalation encourages the occupation authority to proceed with its colonial and racist policies.'

He called on 'the international community, the United Nations, and the International Criminal Court to assume their legal and ethical responsibilities and take practical and deterrent measures to stop the crimes of settlement, annexation, and forced displacement.'

Earlier Monday, the Palestinian Governorate of Jerusalem said in a statement that the new plan being implemented by the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality in the Um Lisun neighborhood is 'a dangerous step to dismantle the Palestinian geography' in the city.

The Um Lisun neighborhood is located between the towns of Jabal al-Mukaber and Sur Baher in East Jerusalem, and currently contains about 800 Palestinian housing units.

On Sunday, the Israeli rights group Ir Amim warned of this plan, saying: 'The District Planning and Building Committee of the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality approved the deposit of a plan including about 450 settlement units in the Um Lisun neighborhood, after the project had been frozen for more than two years due to infrastructure obstacles.'

In the same context, Fattouh said that the storming of the village of Al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah in the occupied central West Bank, by extremist Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir accompanied by a number of settlers, 'constitutes an organized incitement act and a display of colonial force.'

He noted that Ben Gvir's storming of the Palestinian village 'reflects the integration of the Israeli government institution with the settler violence system, which practices organized terrorism against Palestinians.'

Ben Gvir stormed the entrance of Al-Mughayyir village on Monday, accompanied by a number of settlers, according to what the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported from the deputy head of the Al-Mughayyir village council, Marzouq Abu Na'im.

Since October 8, 2023, and in parallel with the Israeli genocidal war on Gaza, the West Bank has witnessed a wide escalation by the Israeli army and settlers, including killings, injuries, arrests, demolition of Palestinian homes and facilities, as well as attacks and mistreatment of residents.

These Israeli attacks have resulted in the deaths of 1,179 Palestinians, injuries to about 13,000, and the arrest of nearly 24,000, according to official Palestinian data.