Israel’s occupation government has created a new authority to provide municipal services to illegal Jewish settlers in Hebron, prompting accusations that Israel is trying to annex part of the occupied West Bank. Israel’s military gave an official settlement status to the Jewish settlers in the city of Hebron.

Hebron, in the southern West Bank, is home to around 200,000 Palestinians, with about 800 settlers living under Israeli army protections in the heart of the city.

The Palestine liberation Organization (PLO)has condemned the illegal Israeli apartheid policies against the indigenous Palestinian people. The new Israeli policies provide increased power for the illegal Israeli settlers to act with impunity against Palestinians.

According to Palestinian officials, the move breaks the 1997 Hebron treaty signed by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israeli government, the treaty split up Hebron city into two parts H1 and H2. The H1 area comprising 80 per cent of the city under full sovereignty and control of the PA, while H2 was to be administered under the Israeli military. However, according to the treaty, civil issues, such as infrastructure, construction and traffic arrangements in the settler’s section of H2 was to be under PA civil control.

The new military older signed by Israeli Head of the Central Command, Major General RoniNuma, will bilaterally do away with that caveat of the treaty, putting such civil issues under local settler administration, according to Wafa.

The settlements are located on lands which Israel seized during the 1967 Middle East war. The international community has repeatedly condemned the settlements as illegal, as a breach of international low and a hurdle to peace.

Governor of occupied Hebron Kamel Hamid condemned the Israeli army decision to expand municipal powers in Hebron to Israeli settlers that live illegally in the city, reportedly. describing the move as “the most dangerous since 1967. “The order jeopardizes any political settlement in the area, which stands in contradiction with the peace process and the establishment of a Palestinian state”Hamed said. Hamid warned that the decision will lead to “ a state of confusion and chaos and will threaten order and stability in the area”, calling for “ urgent political, diplomatic and legal action”.

PLO Secretary – General SaebErekat expressed anger over increased Israeli settlement activity, saying that “ the separate legal status for settlers has created an apartheid- like situation in Hebron where a tiny minority has preferential treatment over the majority”, adding “ This is a new Israeli violation of its obligation under international law and UN resolutions particularly UNSC 2334, which reiterated the international community’s rejection and condemnation of these illegal actions.

Erekat cautioned against the danger of continued Israeli settlement activities and their repercussions on the region, he called on the international community specially the UN Security Council, to shoulder its responsibilities in taking the necessary steps to enforce its decision and compel Israel, the occupying power, to stop all its settlement policies.

Spokesman of Fatah Revolutionary Council Osama Al-Qawasmi said the order was an attempt by Israel’s racist regime to Judaize the old city of Hebron. He demanded immediate and urgent action at official, popular, legal, and diplomatic levels against the order, and called on the international community to immediately prevent these racist destructive and discriminatory measures that violate international law and signed agreements.

The Israel settlement watchdog group,” Peace Now” denounced the move, saying in a statement that “ by granting an official status to the Hebron settlers, the Israeli government is formalizing the apartheid system in the city.

“Peace Now” added that the military decision de facto grants “official status” to Israeli settlers living in Hebron against international law. Due to the timing Peace Now called the new military order “another illustration of the policy of compensating the most extreme settlers for their illegal actions.”

Israeli settlers in Hebron are notoriously extreme in their beliefs and actions against the Palestinian population.

Three years before the Hebron Protocol was established, Israeli-American settler Baruch Goldstein carried out a massacre in the Ibrahimi Mosque, shooting and killing 29 Palestinians in the middle of prayer and injuring 125. On 18 March . 1994, the United Nation Security Council issued resolution 904 which strongly condemned the massacre and called for measures to be taken to guarantee the safety and protection of the Palestinian civilians.

While Israel maintained security control over the area under the 1997 agreement, municipal services to Palestinians and settlers were provided by the Palestine Authority. The West Bank has been under Israeli occupation since 1967 war, and all Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories are illegal under international law, and have been condemned repeatedly by the United Nations. The establishment of a separate municipal entity in Hebron is just the latest in a number of actions taken by Israel to reinforce the illegal settler presence in the city. Last week, Israeli defense minister Avigdor Lieberman upgraded the status of settlers in Hebron so that they will receive the same services provided to other West Bank settlements, and transferred jurisdiction over the area from the Palestinian Authority (PA) to the Israeli Interior Ministry.

Israel was angered following the UNESCO declaration of the Old City of Hebron as a Palestinian World Heritage Site endangered by Israel. UNESCO has voted to recognize Hebron’s Old City and the Ibrahimi Mosque as Palestinian heritage sites despite diplomatic pressures by the US and Israel to recruit the support of enough member states to vote against the move.This decision infuriated Israel and delighted the Palestinians. This time UNESCO determined that the Ibrahimi Mosque is a Palestinian heritage site, meaning that it is not a Jewish site and that it is in danger, emphasizing that it is a part of the State of Palestine. The Worldorganisation also approved the Palestinians’ right to register Hebron and the Ibrahimi Mosque under Palestinian sovereignty and as World Heritage sites and as an endangered site. This vote is considered a success in the diplomatic battle Palestine is fighting on all fronts.

As Palestinians living under colonial occupation are marking 100 years since the Balfour Declaration, 70 years since the UN partition plan and 50 years of the Israeli occupation, it is clear that the international community bears a legal, political and moral responsibility to fulfill the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and hold Israel accountable.
Regretfully such actions and practices could not have taken place without the compliancy of the international community. That is why concrete steps should be taken by the international community to end the systematic Israeli violations of International Humanitarian Law. The time is overdue for real and urgent action in order to save the prospects of a political solution, the two-state solution on the 1967 borders and the chances for a just and lasting peace in Palestine and in the rest of the region.