Less than a month away from a possibly crucial deadline on this burning dossier, thousands of Israelis demonstrated on Saturday, June 6 in Tel Aviv, to denounce the Israeli government's plan to annex sections of the occupied West Bank.
Waving Palestinian and Israeli flags, they also waved signs against the occupation of the West Bank. The demonstration was organized by NGOs and political parties anchored on the left.
The new Israeli union government must present from 1er July its strategy to implement the US administration’s Middle East plan, which provides for Israel’s annexation of the Jordan Valley and settlements in the occupied West Bank.
More than 450,000 Israelis live in these places, deemed illegal by international law. In addition, 2.7 million Palestinians live in the West Bank.
"Justice for the Palestinians"
"We have done enough harm to each other", one of the demonstrators estimated with Agence France-Presse.
“We are brothers, our place is here, one as the other, we can do much more together than separately. "
Another rally participant called for the "Justice for the Palestinians and peace for the two peoples, Israelis and Palestinians. "In this apartheid state, there can be no peace for us and for them, and no justice either", he regretted.
"I am afraid of this annexation plan (…) I think it will lead to riots and even war. "
The demonstration in Tel Aviv comes in the wake of similar protests in the occupied West Bank, where hundreds of Palestinians chanted slogans against Israeli settlement and the proposed annexation. The Palestinians have totally rejected the American plan, which also provides for the creation of a Palestinian state but on a reduced territory and without East Jerusalem as its capital, contrary to what they wish.
