NEW YORK CITY: Arab and Muslim nations at the UN on Tuesday condemned newly approved Israeli measures that tighten control over the occupied West Bank. The moves amount to a step toward illegal annexation and threaten to fuel wider conflict in the region, they warned.
On Sunday, Israel’s Security Cabinet approved new rules designed to strengthen control over the territory, make it easier for Israeli settlers to buy land there, and give Israeli officials stronger powers to enforce laws on Palestinians.
Speaking on behalf of the UN’s Arab Group, Syrian Ambassador Ibrahim Olabi warned that the measures were an attempt to impose “unlawful Israeli sovereignty” over occupied Palestinian territory.
“The Arab Group condemns in the strongest terms the illegal Israeli decisions and measures aimed at imposing unlawful Israeli sovereignty, entrenching settlement activities, and imposing a new legal and administrative reality in the occupied West Bank,” he said outside the Security Council in New York.
Syria holds the presidency of the UN Arab Group this month, and Olabi spoke in the presence of dozens of representatives of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Arab League.
