JERUSALEM: The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency yesterday urged the international community to oppose Israeli plans to relocate thousands of Palestinian Bedouin from the central West Bank.
“If such a plan were implemented this would ... give rise to concerns that it amounts to a ‘forcible transfer’ in contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention,” banning involuntary population relocation in occupied territory, UNRWA Commissioner General Pierre Krahenbuhl said.
“It might also make way for further Israeli illegal settlement expansion, further compromising the viability of a two-state solution,” he said in a statement.
“I urge the Israeli authorities not to proceed with the transfer ...and I also urge the donor and state community to take a firm stand against it.”
UNRWA added that most of those slated for resettlement to Jericho, in the east of the Palestinian territory, were registered Palestinian refugees.
The Israeli military department responsible for civil affairs in the occupied West Bank had no immediate comment, but Haaretz newspaper last week quoted an official as saying that dozens of meetings were held with Bedouin leaders.
AFP
