Businesses in Israeli settlements contribute to rights abuses: HRW

Meanwhile, on the same day the HRW report was released, Israel banned Palestinians from working in settlements in the West Bank indefinitely due to a recent spate of stabbing attacks targeting Israelis, an Israeli spokesperson told Palestinian news agency Ma’an.

Following Wednesday’s announcement, Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now said in a statement that continued land confiscation by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government was a “diplomatic catastrophe”.

“As you see, they call it a security area but you don’t see a single security thing here”, said Erekat, also secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

The EU has held for many years that a final agreement on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be based on a two-state solution, and that Israeli settlements are illegal and undermine peace efforts.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahson said that “Israel is concerned with this one-sided, politicized report” and claimed that Israeli settlements provide employment for Palestinian workers.

The ambassador’s statements have significant fueled the battle of those seeking Israel’s demise, giving more than an air of legitimacy to many bogus allegations leveled against Israel by the PA (Palestinian Authority).

The Prime Minister’s Office had no comment on the matter.

Israel regularly demolishes the homes of alleged attackers in what it describes as a deterrent.

Following the attack in the settlement of Otniel, south of the West Bank city of Hebron, Israeli troops sealed off the area and intensive intelligence work, using local contacts and electronic surveillance, led troops to the local Palestinian village of Yatta, some three kilometres from the attack.

Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war.

The latest violence occurred early Wednesday, according to the army, when a suspected Palestinian gunman shot and lightly wounded an Israeli soldier in the Tulkarem area.

“Settlement activity in East Jerusalem seriously jeopardizes the possibility of Jerusalem serving as the future capital of both States”, the European Union stressed.

Since last four months, at least 25 people had lost their lives in the Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

HRW urged the countries that import Israeli products to ensure that any import of settlement goods into their territory is consistent with their duty under worldwide humanitarian law not to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territories.

In a telephone call with PNN, Barghouthi demanded punitive measures to be taken against the seizure, in order to halt the continuous Israeli settlement expansion on Palestinian land and displacing Palestinian families from their homes.