RAMALLAH /PNN/
The Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said Wednesday that a reported U.S. decision to expand consular services of its embassy in Jerusalem to include the Israeli settlement of Efrat, south of Bethlehem, violates international law and signals bias toward Israeli authorities.
Commission head Mu’ayyad Shaa’ban said in a statement that all Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, which bars an occupying power from transferring parts of its civilian population into the territory it occupies.
He added that United Nations resolutions and the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice affirm the illegality of settlement activity and the obligation not to recognize its legal consequences.
Shaa’ban said extending consular services to a settlement built on confiscated Palestinian land breaches the international law principle of non-recognition of unlawful situations, which requires states to refrain from actions that could grant legitimacy to serious violations.
He said the move contradicts stated commitments to a two-state solution by entrenching settlement expansion and undermining the prospects for an independent Palestinian state.
Shaa’ban also warned that such steps form part of a broader trend that treats occupied territory as an administrative sphere open to diplomatic normalization, effectively turning de facto control into implicit recognition and providing settlements with additional political cover.
He called on the U.S. administration to reverse the decision, comply with international law and avoid measures that undermine what he described as the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to their land and property.
He urged the international community to assume its legal and moral responsibilities in confronting settlement activity and to reject any actions that legitimize or normalize it.
Shaa’ban said Palestinians will continue to defend their land and rights through legal and diplomatic means, adding that granting any administrative or consular status to settlements does not change their status as a violation of international law.
