United Nations Palestinian Rights Committee Bureau Strongly Condemns Israeli Actions Undermining Palestinian Land Rights in Occupied West Bank

The following statement was issued today by the Bureau of the General Assembly's Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People:

The Bureau of the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People strongly condemns the decision by Israel, the occupying Power, to resume land registration procedures in the occupied West Bank alongside countless other illegal policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. Such illegal measures risk the further dispossession of Palestinian landowners and entrenchment of Israel's unlawful control over occupied territory. Recent actions constitute a serious escalation that violates international law and relevant United Nations resolutions and must be condemned. Such so-called administrative measures cannot disguise what this is: the de facto annexation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The Committee Bureau reiterates that the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, must not be subjected to any measures aimed at altering its legal status, demographic composition or territorial integrity. All such policies and measures are null and void and Israeli settlements and settlement-related policies in the occupied territory have no legal validity and are in grave breach of international law, as unequivocally reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice. The Committee Bureau warns that these continued actions of terror, including policies of settlement expansion, land appropriation, forced displacement and de facto annexation gravely threaten and undermine the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination.

The Committee Bureau calls on Israel, the occupying Power, to immediately cease and reverse these measures and fully comply with its obligations under international law. It urges the international community to take concrete steps to uphold accountability and protect the prospect of a just and lasting peace. The only viable path forward remains bringing an end to this illegal occupation, the fulfilment of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and the realization of the two-State solution, with an independent, sovereign Palestinian State living side by side with Israel in peace and security on the basis of the 1967 lines in accordance with international law and relevant United Nations resolutions.