In a press release in unprecedented format, the Chancellery calls on the Israeli government to return to its decision to approve the construction of housing in the occupied territories.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
France, Germany, Italy, Poland, the United Kingdom and Spain expressed on Saturday March 4, “their lively concern in the face of the continuation and intensification of violence in the Palestinian territories occupied “, in a joint press release from their leaders of diplomacy.
“We firmly condemn the recent terrorist attacks which caused the death of Israeli citizens,” they write. “We also firmly condemn the blind violence of Israeli colonists against Palestinian civilians,” they continue, adding that the authors of all these acts “must account and be prosecuted”.
This press release in unprecedented format comes in a context of resurgence of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day war. Last Sunday, the Palestinian city of Howwarah A been attacked by Israeli settlers, a few hours after two young settlers were killed while they crossed this city in the north of the West Bank.
The signatories of the press release urge all the parties to “honor the commitments they made during the Aqaba meeting, by appearing the tensions in words and actions”. Israeli and Palestinian officials committed themselves on February 26 to work for a “de-escalation” at a meeting in Jordan under the aegis of the United States.
“We also reaffirm our lively opposition to all unilateral measures which compromise the solution of the two states, including in matters of progression of colonization”, write European ministers. They call “urgently the Israeli government to return to its recent decision to approve the construction of more than 7,000 housing units throughout the occupied West Bank and to legalize wild colonies”.
Since the beginning of the year, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has cost the life of sixty-five Palestinian, combatants and civilians. Thirteen Israeli adults and children, including members of the security forces and civilians, as well as a Ukrainian, were killed during the same period, according to a count of the France-Presse agency based on official sources of both parts.