{"id":22663,"date":"2025-07-18T09:14:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T13:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/?p=22663"},"modified":"2025-07-18T11:02:30","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T15:02:30","slug":"merkley-van-hollen-sanders-welch-denounce-threats-to-west-bank-communities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merkley.senate.gov\/es\/merkley-van-hollen-sanders-welch-denounce-threats-to-west-bank-communities\/","title":{"rendered":"Merkley, Van Hollen, Sanders, Welch Denounce Threats to West Bank Communities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, D.C. \u2013&nbsp;Following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s visit to the United States last week,&nbsp;Oregon\u2019s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley,&nbsp;Maryland\u2019s U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen, and Vermont\u2019s U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch issued&nbsp;the following statement in response to the Israeli Higher Planning Council\u2019s directive on June 18 to reject all zoning and building permits in Masafer Yatta that are not compliant with Israeli military training needs:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cWe are deeply alarmed by the Israeli Higher Planning Council\u2019s decision to reject all planning and zoning requests in Masafer Yatta that do not align with the Israeli Defense Force\u2019s training needs. This directive places at least 12 Palestinian villages under the threat of imminent demolition \u2013 all while illegal Israeli outposts in the area remain untouched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFor decades, the Israeli government has denied residents of Masafer Yatta building permits, confiscated their agricultural lands, and demolished key infrastructure. Taken as a whole, the Council\u2019s decision as well as the recent announcement of 22 new settlements across the West Bank,&nbsp;rising extremist settler violence, and a petition from cabinet ministers urging Netanyahu to apply Israeli sovereignty and law over the West Bank before the end of the month,&nbsp;advance a broader project of de jure and de facto Israeli annexation aimed at preventing the formation of a future Palestinian state. Forced evictions, demolitions, settler violence, and rapid settlement expansion all exacerbate tensions in an already volatile region and put any peaceful future for Israelis and Palestinians further out of reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWith the ceasefire between Israel and Iran still tenuous and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza already dire, the Netanyahu government\u2019s continued reckless policy in the West Bank is deeply alarming. The Masafer Yatta directive is part of that trajectory, one that pushes us further from a future Palestinian state living peacefully alongside the state of Israel and toward permanent occupation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe refuse to look away from the injustice unfolding in Masafer Yatta and the escalating violence in the West Bank at large, which&nbsp;has now claimed the lives of five Palestinian Americans since&nbsp;October 7.&nbsp;To ensure lasting peace&nbsp;and stability in the region, we call on the Israeli government to revoke the Higher Planning Council&#8217;s directive, impose an immediate moratorium on all demolitions and evictions, halt further military training exercises in Masafer Yatta, and take immediate action to de-escalate the growing violence in the West Bank.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">###<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington, D.C. \u2013&nbsp;Following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s visit to the United States last week,&nbsp;Oregon\u2019s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley,&nbsp;Maryland\u2019s U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen, and Vermont\u2019s U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch issued&nbsp;the following statement in response to the Israeli Higher Planning Council\u2019s directive on June 18 to reject all zoning and building permits in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":17054,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[38],"class_list":["post-22663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-releases","tag-foreign-policy-and-national-security"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - 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