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Israel has de facto annexed West Bank: Analyst

Monday, 02 July 2018 12:42 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 02 July 2018 6:17 PM ]

An analyst believes Israel has “de facto” annexed the West Bank, saying Western powers have given the Israeli regime “carte blanche” to effectively annex the occupied Palestinian territory.

“The reality on the ground is that Israel annexed the West Bank, has done so for many years … Israel has the monopoly of military power across the whole of Palestine apart from Gaza at the moment and has de facto annexed the West Bank … So the difference between de facto annexation and public, legal annexation is purely symbolic. Israel has been allowed and has been encouraged by the West to extend its power to the limit that it possibly can,” Mick Napier, member of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, told Press TV in an interview on Monday.

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of their future independent state, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital, while the Israeli occupiers of Palestinian territories deem the West Bank as “liberated land,” saying formal annexation is only a matter of time.

More than half a million Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.