The Palestinian national office for the defense of land and resistance of settlement warned of the dangers and consequences of the Israeli rabbis’ advisory opinion permitting settlers to poison the running water in cities and towns of the West Bank.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has denounced a Jewish rabbi’s permission for settlers to poison water sources in Palestinian areas in the occupied West Bank as “an order to kill”, according to the Anadolu Agency.
Rabbi Shlomo Mlma, chairman of the Council of Rabbis in the West Bank settlements, has issued an advisory opinion in which he allowed Jewish settlers to poison water in Palestinian villages and cities in the West Bank.
In its weekly report, the office on Saturday pointed to the advisory opinion by Rabbi Shlomo Mlmad, the chairman of the so-called Council of Rabbis in West Bank settlements, which was disclosed by the Israeli organization ‘Break the Silence’.
“This is an incitement and a call for killing the Palestinians,” Wasil Abu Youssef, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, told Anadolu Agency on Sunday.
He said such opinions by Jewish rabbis “prove that Israel is not a real peace partner”.
“Dozens of similar orders were made by rabbis that called for killing Palestinians, robbing their lands and farmlands and destroying their property,” he said.
The PLO said in a statement that the rabbi’s order encourages settlers to stage assaults against Palestinians.
“Hundreds of incidents were documented against Palestinian residents because of such racist advisories,” said the statement issued by the PLO’s national office for the defense of the land.
International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied territories and considers all Jewish settlement building on the land to be illegal.
Yehuda Shaul, of Break the Silence organization, said that the aim behind poisoning water in the West Bank is pushing Palestinians to leave their towns and cities to pave the way for settlers who look forward to take over their lands.
About 500,000 Jewish settlers currently live in more than 100 Jewish-only settlements built since Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967.
The Palestinians want these areas, along with the Gaza Strip, for a future state of Palestine.
Palestinian negotiators, however, insist that Israeli settlement building on Arab land must stop before a comprehensive peace agreement can be reached.
