Palestine warns of dangers of approving Israeli Apartheid bill

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
10 Jan 2023 14:05

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry says the Israeli "emergency regulations" bill provides legal protection for crimes against Palestinians.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemned the Israeli Knesset's first reading of extending the so-called "emergency regulations" bill, or what has come to be known as the Apartheid law.

In 1967, the Israeli occupation approved the "emergency regulations" bill, which is renewed in the Knesset every five years.

In a statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry indicated that the racist colonial bill is being applied in the occupied West Bank and gives settlers the same rights enjoyed by a person inside the '48 occupied Palestinian territories.

According to the Palestinian Ministry, the bill is concerned with extending the validity of the legalization of settlement and occupation in the occupied West Bank.

The Ministry added that the Israeli bill provides legal protection and immunity for perpetrators of crimes against the Palestinian people and strengthens the system of military colonialism and apartheid in occupied Palestine.

The statement read that the Palestinian Foreign Ministry regards the bill as of great seriousness and considers it an attempt to gradually legalize the silent annexation of the occupied West Bank.

It also warned that the law is a flagrant violation of international law, the Geneva Conventions, and international humanitarian law.

Elsewhere, the statement pointed out that in cooperation with legal experts, the Ministry is studying the best legal and political ways to expose the dimensions of this bill and its repercussions on the existing legal and historical situation in the occupied West Bank, including the eastern part of Al-Quds, and to confront it in international political, diplomatic, and legal forums.

In continuation of the Israeli occupation's racist policies against Palestinians, Israeli Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said on Sunday that he instructed occupation forces to remove Palestinian flags from public spaces.

In a statement, Ben-Gvir, best known for calling for the killing of Palestinians, claimed that waving the Palestinian flag is an act in "support of terrorism."

"It cannot be that lawbreakers wave terrorist flags, incite and encourage terrorism, so I ordered the removal of flags supporting terrorism from the public space and to stop the incitement against Israel," the extremist Israeli occupation Minister said.