Awad Rajoub
18 March 2023•Update: 19 March 2023
RAMALLAH, Palestine
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh on Saturday accused Israel of seeking to “erase” the 1967 borders.
“The Israeli government seeks to reoccupy the West Bank, erase the 1967 borders and settle the conflict in favor of the occupation,” Shtayyeh told a meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
US-sponsored peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel collapsed in 2014 over Israel’s refusal to halt settlement building and release Palestinians imprisoned before the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Israel occupied the whole of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, following the 1967 war.
The Palestinians want the West Bank – along with the Gaza Strip – for the establishment of a future Palestinian state.
International law views both the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territories and considers all Israeli settlement-building activity there as illegal.
Israel "is extensively carrying out assassinations and arrests and pursuing a systematic destruction of the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state,” Shtayyeh said.
Tension has escalated across the occupied West Bank in recent weeks amid repeated Israeli military raids into Palestinian towns.
According to Palestinian figures, more than 80 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire since the beginning of this year. Fourteen Israelis were also killed in separate attacks during the same period.
* Ikram Imane Kouachi contributed to this report
