By Beyza Binnur Donmez
GENEVA (AA) – Israel has begun implementing its long-standing threat to expel Palestinians and annex the occupied West Bank, senior Palestinian diplomat Ibrahim Khraishi has warned.
Israel has killed more than 60 Palestinians, arrested at least 365, displaced tens of thousands, and destroyed scores of homes and properties in the occupied West Bank since launching an operation called “Iron Wall” on Jan. 21, just days after a ceasefire took effect in the Gaza Strip.
On Sunday, Israel deployed tanks in the West Bank for the first time in more than 20 years as Defense Minister Israel Katz said the army would remain in some refugee camps “for the next year.”
Along with the growing violence, Israeli politicians have been issuing increasingly brazen threats of annexation and asserting that the thousands of Palestinians displaced in the ongoing offensive would not be allowed to return.
What Israel is doing in the West Bank poses a grave danger, Khraishi, the permanent observer of Palestine to the UN in Geneva, told Anadolu.
He pointed out that Israel has already displaced more than 43,000 Palestinians from refugee camps in the northern West Bank, including Jenin, Tulkarem, Nur Shams, and Al-Fara.
Khraishi cited Katz’s recent remarks as an indication of Israel’s intent, adding that its opposition to and ban on the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) are also “part of this plan.”
“They will undermine UNRWA, and they will expel the refugees from their camps, and ultimately eliminate their right of return,” he said, referring to UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which affirms Palestinian refugees’ right to return to their homes.
“This is the idea, and their threat always is that they will expel the Palestinians and they will annex the West Bank,” Khraishi added.
- Netanyahu plans to ‘restart war’
Khraishi also accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of deliberately stalling the release of Palestinian prisoners – a condition of the ceasefire – as part of a broader strategy to resume Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.
He said Netanyahu’s government is trying to secure the release of Israeli hostages while avoiding commitments to fully implement the ceasefire, open border crossings, or allow humanitarian aid and reconstruction efforts in Gaza.
“I think that his (Netanyahu’s) plan is to restart the war in Gaza once again,” he said.
The Israeli premier, he added, is trying to use the controversy over the recent handover of bodies of four Israeli hostages as a justification to resume military operations in Gaza.
The public display of the coffins by Hamas drew widespread condemnation, which Khraishi said Netanyahu is using as justification to extend military operations.
Netanyahu wants to secure the release of Israeli hostages without respecting the ceasefire deal, ending Israel’s presence in Gaza, or facilitating humanitarian aid and reconstruction, the envoy reiterated.
As phase one of the ceasefire deal nears its conclusion on March 1, Khraishi stressed that the second phase requires Israel to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor, a strip of land along the Egypt-Gaza border that Israel has occupied since launching its Gaza offensive.
However, he added, recent Israeli statements contradict this commitment.
- ‘We don’t want Trump to make a riviera for us’
Khraishi also rejected any foreign-led reconstruction initiative that disregards Palestinian sovereignty, referencing US President Donald Trump’s “strange” proposal to transform Gaza into a Mediterranean resort-like area.
Trump’s proposal to take control of the Gaza Strip and forcibly displace its 2.2 million residents to turn the besieged enclave into the “Riviera of the Middle East” has sparked global shock and outrage, with officials and analysts warning that such actions could amount to ethnic cleansing.
“We don’t want Trump to make a riviera for us. If they want to help, they should end the occupation. Only then can we build our own future,” the envoy concluded.