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Israel’s West Bank sovereignty move may worsen humanitarian crisis — expert

According to Hicheme Lehmici, the Israeli parliament's move makes it clear that the international community will once again see "a policy of extermination and cleansing in the West Bank, similar to the one that was pursued in Gaza"

GENEVA, July 28. /TASS/. The declaration on applying Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank, passed by the country’s parliament, may further worsen the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territories, Hicheme Lehmici, secretary of the Geneva International Peace Research Institute (GIPRI) and lecturer at the SWISS UMEF University of Applied Sciences Institute, told TASS.

According to him, the Israeli parliament's move makes it clear that the international community will once again see "a policy of extermination and cleansing in the West Bank, similar to the one that was pursued in Gaza." "That said, we should expect the humanitarian disaster in Gaza to spill over into the West Bank, too," Lehmici noted. In his view, the declaration will also "fuel all kinds of extremism in the region, pushing a number of political organizations to mobilize to create a front against Israeli expansionism."

However, the expert pointed out that the decision only "documents the situation, where a gradual seizure of Palestinian territory in the West Bank has been going on for decades."

On July 23, Israel’s Knesset (parliament) passed a declaration calling on the government to apply the country’s sovereignty to the West Bank. Although the document is declarative in nature, ten Arab and Muslim nations, namely Bahrain, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Nigeria, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, condemned the move as a blatant violation of international law and UN Security Council resolutions. The Russian Foreign Ministry stated that Moscow was negative about Israel’s declaration and expected that it would never be implemented.