Fattouh: The Project to Establish a 'Jewish Heritage Authority' in the West Bank is a Serious Escalation in Colonial Annexation Policies

SadaNews - Palestinian National Council President Rouhi Fattouh stated that the Israeli Knesset's approval in the first reading of a bill to establish a "Heritage Authority for Judea and Samaria" represents a serious escalation in the creeping policies of colonial annexation and systematic ethnic cleansing practiced by the occupying state in the occupied West Bank, under the cover of invalid legislation that violates international law and international legitimacy decisions.

Fattouh, in a statement issued today, Wednesday, confirmed that employing heritage as a colonial political tool to seize land and impose Israeli sovereignty over occupied areas clearly reveals the occupation's intentions to entrench an apartheid system, erase the national and historical identity of the Palestinian people, and impose colonial realities by force on the ground, in blatant violation of the Geneva and Hague Conventions, and relevant United Nations resolutions.

He emphasized that granting this authority powers to seize, excavate, and impose control over areas B and C constitutes a direct affront to the sovereign rights of the Palestinian people, and is part of a comprehensive colonial scheme aimed at displacing Palestinians, seizing their lands and resources, and transforming the West Bank into isolated "cantons" that serve the project of annexation and settlement expansion.

Fattouh called on the international community and the International Criminal Court to take urgent action to stop these colonial crimes and hold the occupying state accountable for its continuous violations, stressing that mere condemnatory positions are no longer sufficient in light of the acceleration of annexation and ethnic cleansing policies against the Palestinian people.