Statements “violate international law”
Portugal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned the statements made by Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who last week advocated ‘forever’ withdrawing the territories of Gaza and the West Bank from Palestinians who have lived in them for centuries.
Writing over social network ‘X’ yesterday, Paulo Rangel wrote: “Portugal condemns Minister Smotrich’s statements in favour of Israel’s annexation of the West Bank. These statements violate international law and ignore the rights of the Palestinian people.”
Last Monday, at a meeting of the Religious Zionist Party, Bezalel Smotrich said that both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank will be “forever taken away” from the Palestinians following Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections.
“We were one step away from implementing sovereignty over the settlements in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), and now the time has come to do so,” said Smotrich – also deputy minister in the Ministry of Defence, responsible for civil affairs in the occupied West Bank – in statements to members of the ultra-nationalist coalition, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At the end of May, the Israeli army handed over significant legal powers in the occupied West Bank to settler officials led by Smotrich, in a move that several legal experts described as a “de facto” annexation, since the ultimate goal is direct control of the Palestinian territories by the Israeli government.
Smotrich – who lives in a settlement in the West Bank – also said that he had instructed the settlement administration division of the Ministry of Defence and the Israeli army’s civil administration in the West Bank to begin preparing the infrastructure needed to occupy the West Bank.
This year has already seen a record appropriation of Palestinian land after Israel declared more than 2,300 hectares in the occupied West Bank as state land – a mechanism it uses, along with the designation of nature reserves and military training areas, to expel more Palestinians and control the territory.
Israel took control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War and has maintained a military occupation of this Palestinian territory ever since.
Lusa concludes that “the Israeli government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, promotes a policy of settlement expansion through the Israeli Colonisation Council, which is supported by the army on the ground”.
LUSA
