The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates expressed today, Sunday, its strong rejection of what it described as the "Israeli occupation’s strategic plan to develop East Jerusalem," stating that the plan aims to deepen the Judaization of Jerusalem and alter its features in all areas, including limiting the natural population growth of Palestinian citizens, imposing Israeli curricula on schools, and promoting settlement.

The ministry added, in a press statement, that this racist plan comes amid the ongoing open war of occupation against Jerusalem and the Palestinian presence therein, and an attempt to besiege and inundate it with settlements from all directions, completely isolating it from its Palestinian surroundings, affirming its annexation and unilaterally determining its political future by force of occupation and away from any negotiations.

The ministry confirmed that this plan has clear colonial, expansionist, and racist objectives, and is not as the Israeli government promotes regarding bridging the gap between the two halves of the city; rather, it seeks to deepen the processes of seizing citizens’ lands and creating an environment that drives them away from their holy city.

In a separate context, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned in the strongest terms the attacks and assaults by settlers on the town of Hawara in "Nablus" and the homes of Palestinian citizens in the neighboring villages, as well as the attacks on citizens and their vehicles in Jerusalem and on the main roads and their intersections in the occupied West Bank, emphasizing that the lack of punishment for Israeli settlers encourages them to commit more crimes.

The ministry's statement clarified that the incitement calls made by settlers on social media, which again call for the obliteration of Hawara, confirm that settler organizations derive encouragement, support, and backup for their violations from the political level in Israel due to their feeling of protection and immunity provided by the occupation forces and their various arms and systems.

The ministry held the Israeli government, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, fully and directly responsible for the violations and crimes of settlers against Palestinian citizens, their lands, properties, homes, vehicles, and holy sites throughout the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, which continue around the clock for no reason other than a culture of hatred, malice, racism, and colonialism to complete the announced and unannounced gradual annexation of the occupied West Bank.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry warned of the grave danger of the return of the slogan "Erasing Hawara," considering it a direct and public incitement to commit acts of genocide against Palestinian citizens, and calls to deepen ethnic cleansing crimes not only in the sight and hearing of the Israeli government but with the support of its ministers and officials.

The ministry pointed out that the failure of the international community to take deterrent measures and sanctions stipulated by international law against the perpetrators of these crimes has encouraged settlers to commit more crimes and to reproduce the burning and obliteration of Hawara.