Hanan Ashrawi, member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said the Israeli President and Prime Minister’s provocative ‘visit’ to Hebron City is an irresponsible and offensive attempt to pander to the most extreme and racist elements of the settler movement.

The intolerable reality of segregation, racial discrimination, daily harassment, and oppression imposed on the Palestinian population in Hebron are maintained by the policies and racist illegal policies Netanyahu wants to perpetuate and promote against the Palestinian people across the occupied Palestinians Territory, including Jerusalem., said Ahrawi in a statement.

The Palestinian leadership condemns this inflammatory action and considers it a wilful declaration of hostility against the Palestinian people and their basic right to life in dignity and freedom as well as our inalienable right to self-determination, said the statement.

“We equally condemn the summoning of religious rhetoric to build and expand illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, while justifying the continued land theft as well as the oppression and dispossession of the Palestinian people. This highly irresponsible conduct threatens to change the character of this political conflict and plunge it into the abyss of religious strife and conflict.”

Hebron’s Old City, including the Ibrahimi Mosque, is a World Heritage site under threat, as affirmed by UNESCO since 2017, she said.

“As such, the international community has added responsibility to protect this City from further pillaging and devastation and to compel Israel to end its draconian measures against the Palestinian population in Hebron and restore life and freedom to its besieged neighborhoods, which have been forcibly emptied of life and hope by the Israeli occupation. It is time to hold Israel accountable for its grave violations of international law and human dignity in Palestine,” the statement concluded.