EDITOR — In violation of international law, organised settler terrorism against Palestinian civilians in more than 10 villages in the West Bank and the countryside has reached unprecedented levels under the protection of the Israeli occupation army. 

Israeli militias obtain encouragement and political support in the practice of their terrorist acts through the supply of various weapons, protection and immunity provided by the extremist Israeli government to execute a premeditated plan of gradual annexation of the West Bank thereby undermining the opportunity to realise the Palestinian statehood.

The international community should urgently intervene to force the Israeli government to stop all its settlement activities, dismantle armed colonialist militias, remove their weapons, stop their financing and punish those who support them.  

The attacks are an extension of Israel’s open aggression against the Palestinian people in a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.

The State of Palestine demands the imposition of binding international sanctions on the entire colonial settlement system, considering it illegal and illegitimate. 

Armed settlers and the Israeli army have killed 470 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October 2023, while displacing hundreds of people from their lands.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) should quickly issue arrest warrants against the colonialists and those behind them who commit crimes against the Palestinians and bring them to international justice.

The State of Palestine stresses the necessity to ensure the immediate and comprehensive cessation of the ongoing Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people in the besieged Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including Jerusalem. 

The martyrs toll in Gaza has reached 35 000, over 8 000 under the rubble and 76 000 injured.

Ambassador Dr Tamer Almassri, the Palestinian Ambassador to Zimbabwe.