By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Eight Muslim-majority countries including Pakistan issued a joint statement on Monday condemning Israel’s latest measures in the occupied West Bank, warning that the steps amounted to an attempt at illegal annexation and risked fueling further violence in the region.
The foreign ministers of Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Turkiye, Saudi Arabia and Qatar said they “condemned in the strongest terms the illegal Israeli decisions and measures aimed at imposing unlawful Israeli sovereignty, entrenching settlement activity, and enforcing a new legal and administrative reality in the occupied West Bank, thereby accelerating attempts at its illegal annexation and the displacement of the Palestinian people.”
The statement, released a day after Israel’s security cabinet approved a series of measures to facilitate land purchases by settlers in the West Bank and expand enforcement powers over Palestinians, reaffirmed that “Israel has no sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territory.” Citing reports from Israeli media outlets Ynet and Haaretz, the measures include the scrapping of long-standing regulations that had barred Jewish private citizens from buying land in the territory. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Defence Minister Israel Katz were quoted in those reports as endorsing the changes.
“The ministers warned against the continued expansionist Israeli policies and illegal measures pursued by the Israeli government in the occupied West Bank, which fuel violence and conflict in the region,” the statement said. It expressed “absolute rejection” of Israel’s actions, describing them as “a blatant violation of international law, undermine the two-state solution, and represent an assault on the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to realise their independent and sovereign state.” “Such actions also undermine the ongoing efforts for peace and stability in the region,” the ministers added.
The statement further held that “these illegal measures in the occupied West Bank are null and void and constitute a clear violation of UN Security Council resolutions, particularly Resolution 2334, which condemns all Israeli measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character, and status of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.” In that context, the ministers recalled the “2024 advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which found that Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territory and its continued presence is illegal, affirmed the necessity of ending the Israeli occupation, and the nullity of the annexation of occupied Palestinian lands.”
The eight countries called on the international community to “fulfil its legal and moral responsibilities and to compel Israel to halt its dangerous escalation in the occupied West Bank and the inciting statements of its officials.” “They stressed that the fulfilment of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and statehood,” the ministers said, underscoring the need for such statehood to be “based on the two-state solution in accordance with resolutions of international legitimacy and the Arab Peace Initiative,” which they described as “the only path to achieving just and comprehensive peace that ensures security and stability in the region.”
The same group of nations had collaborated last year with the administration of US President Donald Trump on a plan aimed at ending Israel’s military actions in Gaza. Earlier this month, the eight countries issued a separate statement condemning Israel’s repeated violations of the ceasefire in Gaza, saying such actions risked derailing collective efforts by regional and international partners to implement the second phase of Trump’s plan for restoring stability.
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