Israel’s creeping annexation of the occupied West Bank is now virtually complete, even if undeclared, a Palestinian diplomat has warned.
The UK, France and other countries are preparing to recognise Palestine at the UN this month, setting a historic challenge to Israel as it wages war in Gaza.
But they should also be braced for Israel to take steps in retaliation, said Dr Husam Zomlot, who leads the Palestinian mission to the UK.
He warned that the West Bank could be officially annexed soon, as Israeli troops were stationed around every Palestinian village.
“Israel de facto has already annexed the West Bank. They are just waiting for the moment to announce it. It is destroying entire apparatus of Palestinian government,” he said, speaking at Chatham House in London on Tuesday.
Dr Zomlot had just returned from a month in the West Bank, where he said the scenes there “shocked him to the core”.
“Each town, each village is surrounded by barbed wires, one gate with one gate keeper. The settlements are becoming the central urban infrastructure of the West Bank,” he said.
Israel has led a “suffocating” economic blockade of the West Bank since October 7, with more than 250,000 Palestinians no longer able to work in Israel, and the same number of Palestinian Authority civil servants unable to claim their salaries.
“The economic and financial strangulation of the West Bank has led to a situation of complete suffocation” he said.
“We are at an existential moment. Even I was not prepared for what I have seen,” he said.
Though the international attention was “rightly” focused on Gaza and the famine, and he feared that what was left of the strip would soon be destroyed as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scorned ceasefire efforts.
“What is left of Gaza is a few neighbourhoods in the city. Israel is preparing as we speak to destroy that,” he said.
“A deal is on the table. Netanyahu is refusing a deal that would see the release of hostages, the exchange of hostages, a deal that would see the reconstruction of Gaza,” he said.
The UK’s pledge to recognise Palestine was key to the “correction of the historic injustice” of the Balfour Declaration of 1918, which gave parts of the Palestinian land for the creation of Israel.
But Dr Zomlot criticised its conditionality, and warned further steps would need to be taken to ensure Israel ends its war in Gaza and military occupation of Palestinian territories.
“Recognition is the first meaningful step but it is by no means the last. Has to be followed by actual sanctions,” he said.
He urged the UK and others to follow the “three main rules” established in by the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion on the situation in Palestine last year.
Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, and Jewish settlements in the West Bank were found to be illegal. “The ICJ, the highest world court, deliberated and decided that this is no longer a military occupation, this is annexation,” he said.
Therefore, countries were advised to “cease immediately to provide material, political, legal, support” to the illegal settlements in the West Bank, he said.
The UK government was trailing behind a youth movement for Palestine that had been the “most active and the most aware” on the issues.
“The UK government have taken some steps, but it is always too little and always too late,” he said.
“This is not about punishing Israel – it is about saving Israel and saving the rest of us.”
