ISTANBUL, Feb 24 (Reuters) – The foreign ministers of Brazil, France, Spain, Turkey and various other states condemned Israeli decisions that they said introduce sweeping extensions to unlawful Israeli control over the West Bank.<\/p>\n
“Changes are wide-ranging, reclassifying Palestinian land as so-called Israeli \u2018state land\u2019, accelerating illegal settlement activity, and further entrenching Israeli administration,” said the joint statement, issued late on Monday by the Turkish Foreign Ministry.<\/p>\n
Other countries to sign the statement included Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar, as well as the heads of the Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.<\/p>\n
Israel’s cabinet on February 15 approved further measures to tighten Israel’s control over the occupied West Bank and make it easier for settlers to buy land, a move Palestinians called a “de-facto annexation”.<\/p>\n
The West Bank is among the territories that Palestinians seek for a future independent state. Much of it is under Israeli military control, with limited Palestinian self-rule in some areas run by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.<\/p>\n
The joint statement said the settlements, and decisions designed to further them, are “a flagrant violation of international law” and a step towards “unacceptable de facto annexation”.<\/p>\n
It said they also undermine the ongoing efforts for peace and stability in the region and threaten any meaningful prospect of regional integration.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Stephen Coates)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ISTANBUL, Feb 24 (Reuters) – The foreign ministers of Brazil, France, Spain, Turkey and various other states condemned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-307262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}