Fattouh Welcomes European Decision to Impose Sanctions on Colonial Organizations Supporting Settlement

SadaNews - The President of the Palestinian National Council, Rouhi Fattouh, welcomed the decision reached by the European Union foreign ministers to impose new sanctions on several colonial organizations involved in supporting and expanding settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Fattouh considered, in a statement issued by him, that this step represents a delayed acknowledgment of the seriousness of the colonial project, and the crimes of murder and organized terrorism committed by settlers against the Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank.

He emphasized that the attacks by settlers are no longer individual acts, but represent organized terrorism occurring in full partnership with the figures of the extremist Israeli right-wing government, which provides them with weapons, political, military protection, and legal cover, amid rising crimes of murder, arson, forced displacement, and land confiscation in the Palestinian territories, especially in the Jordan Valley, Masafer Yatta, and the south of Hebron.

Fattouh urged the international community and the European Union not to be content with imposing sanctions on colonial associations and organizations, but to expand them to include the figures of the extremist Israeli government and the official entities that incite, fund, and support colonial terrorism, in addition to imposing sanctions on the Israeli Knesset due to the enactment and legislation of racist laws that entrench the system of apartheid and oppression against the Palestinian people.

He stressed the necessity of dealing with the occupying state as an apartheid state that commits war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and systematic violations of international law and international humanitarian law, calling for the adoption of international measures that ensure the protection of the Palestinian people and hold accountable those responsible for these crimes.