Adalah welcomes UN Security Council resolution declaring Israeli settlements as illegal

28/12/2016

Resolution consistent with int'l humanitarian law; Adalah demands Israel abide by Security Council's calls to "immediately and completely" cease all settlement activities, including in East J'lem.

Adalah welcomes United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, which was adopted on 23 December 2016 by a 14-0 vote and which declares Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) to be illegal.

Adalah views the resolution to be consistent with international humanitarian law and a key step in protecting the rights of Palestinians living under occupation. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention forbids the State of Israel – as an occupying power – to exploit the lands it occupied since 1967 for its own political or civil purposes, including to "deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." Such population transfer is also designated as a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Similarly, in its ruling on 9 July 2004, the International Court of Justice emphasized that Israeli settlements constructed in the OPT are a violation of international humanitarian law.

Adalah therefore demands that Israel respect its legal obligations as an occupying power and abide by the Security Council's calls to "immediately and completely" cease all settlement activities, including in East Jerusalem.

(File photo courtesy of United Nations Photo)