If Israel annexes “even one centimeter” of the West Bank, it will be obligated to bear the responsibilities of an occupier over the civilian population, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas tells the Arab League’s Parliament on Wednesday.
“Such an illegitimate step will obligate Israel to bear the responsibilities in occupied land as an occupying power according to the Fourth Geneva Convention,” Abbas says.
The Geneva Conventions lay out the responsibilities of an occupying power and are often used as the legal basis for declaring Israeli settlement building illegal.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on May 7, 2020. (Nasser Nasser/Pool/AFP)
Abbas’s statement corresponds to what other high-ranking PA officials have told journalists in recent weeks.
“Every day, I’ll be retreating from my responsibilities,” senior PA official Hussein al-Sheikh told The New York Times in early June. “I am telling the Israelis, if this situation continues, you will have to take full responsibility as an occupying power. It could go back to like it was before Oslo.”
— Aaron Boxerman
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