Guterres urges Israel to reverse plan to register land as state property in West Bank

Guterres has “condemned” the Israeli Government’s decision approved last Sunday to resume the land registration procedure in Area C of the West Bank because “it could lead to the dispossession of Palestinians of their properties and the expansion of Israeli control over the territory.”

This measure, and in general the presence of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories, “is not only destabilizing, but is illegal, as recalled by the International Court of Justice.” Therefore, it urges the Israeli Government to “immediately reverse” these measures that “erode the prospects for a two-state solution”, “the only path to lasting peace.”

Guterres recalled that “all” Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and “the regime associated with them (…) have no legal validity and are a flagrant violation of International Law and relevant United Nations resolutions.”

The West Bank — including East Jerusalem — and the Gaza Strip were militarily occupied by Israel in the 1967 war along with the Syrian Golan Heights. In total, some 700,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank, part in colonies considered legal by Israel and part in settlements considered illegal even by the Israeli Government, although International Law reflects that all of them are illegal and colonization is a war crime.