'Israel' transforming areas of Palestine into mass detention camps: Palestinian VP
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- Palestinian Vice President Hussein Al-Sheikh accused ‘Israel’ of using gates, checkpoints and land seizures to restrict Palestinian communities across the occupied West Bank.
- He called on the international community and the United Nations to take measures against what he described as racism and ethnic cleansing.
Palestinian Vice President Hussein Al-Sheikh accused ‘Israel’ of turning Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps into what he described as “mass detention camps,” amid continued restrictions, settlement expansion and land confiscation in the occupied West Bank.
In a social media post, Al-Sheikh said the ‘Israeli’ government was transforming Palestinian communities through gates and checkpoints while uprooting olive trees from hundreds of dunams of Palestinian land.
He called on the international community to intervene to protect Palestinians and urged the United Nations to adopt measures during its ongoing General Assembly meetings.
“We call upon the world to intervene to protect our people from racism and ethnic cleansing,” Al-Sheikh said, urging the UN to take steps that would protect Palestinians and compel the occupation to halt its actions.
Al-Sheikh has repeatedly raised concerns over settlement expansion, settler attacks and land confiscation in the West Bank.
In August, he and Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi warned that continued ‘Israeli’ settlement expansion, land confiscation and settler violence were undermining prospects for peace. They specifically condemned plans for hundreds of settlement units under the E1 project east of occupied East Jerusalem.
Al-Sheikh also condemned an August decision by the ‘Israeli’ government to transfer law-enforcement powers in settlements in the occupied West Bank to ‘Israeli’ police. He described the move as an attempt to entrench the annexation of Palestinian land.
More recently, Al-Sheikh told the EU commissioner for the Mediterranean that escalating settler violence, settlement expansion and land confiscation were threatening Palestinian security and the possibility of achieving a two-state solution.
Al-Sheikh has also called for stronger international measures against settlement activity. Earlier this month, he welcomed a statement by the foreign ministers of 12 European countries supporting a two-state solution and backing restrictions on trade in products from illegal settlements, saying condemnation should be followed by “binding and decisive” measures.
The Palestinian leadership has increasingly focused on settlement expansion, land confiscation and restrictions on movement as key threats to the territorial continuity of a future Palestinian state.
