Thousands of protesters demonstrated on Saturday in Tel Aviv against the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to annex the illegal settlements in West Bank and the Jordan Valley.
Palestinian National Authority has threatened to withdraw from all security agreements, prompted by the de facto annexation of the Palestinian lands. While wearing face masks and maintaining a safe distance from each other under the coronavirus social distancing restrictions, the protesters gathered under the banner “No to annexation, no to the occupation, yes to peace and democracy.”
NGOs and the left-wing groups organized the protests but did not appear to have the support of the wider population. According to a recent opinion poll, half of the Israeli citizens support the annexation of West Bank and Jordan Valley.
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The organizers also screened a video address by US Senator Bernie Sanders. In this address, Sanders said that it is the most crucial time for people to stand up for justice and the future the Palestinian people deserve.
The Palestinian Authority wants an independent state in East Jerusalem, West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, which Israel captured in the 1967 war. In 2005, the Israeli defense forces withdrew from Gaza, but two years later, it imposed a crippling land, water, and air blockade of the enclave that the United Nations’ head has called an ‘’open-air prison’’.
In January, President Trump also unveiled its Middle East Peace Plan, which acknowledged Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied territories and gave a green signal to the annexation plans in line with the US peace plan.
The US president said that Israel would be granted full control of the Jordan Valley in the West Bank, where over the decade, dozens of illegal settlements have been built. In return, the Palestinian would have their demilitarized state with its capital in East Jerusalem.
However, the proposed plan also envisions a Palestinian state, but on a reduced territory. Palestinian have rejected the plan and voiced outrage against the plans of the new unity government to start the annexation as early as the first week of July.
Some Arab and European countries, along with the UN, have urged the Israeli government to halt its plan to annex the occupied territory.
