The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said today that it has launched extensive diplomatic efforts to get Israel to cancel its decision banning work of Palestine TV in occupied East Jerusalem.
It said in a statement that it strongly condemns the Israeli decision to extend the closure of Palestine TV office in Jerusalem for six months and to ban its staff from doing any work for the official television station, describing it as “a flagrant violation of international law and international legality and its resolutions, which affirm that East Jerusalem is an integral part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 1967, and a flagrant violation of freedom of opinion, expression and freedom of the press guaranteed by international humanitarian law.”
It said the decision is also a violation of signed agreements and an encroachment on final status issues.
As a result, said the statement, Foreign Minister Riyad Malki has instructed the Palestinian ambassadors around the world to get in touch with the foreign ministries and decision makers in their host countries to complain about this issue and other Israeli measures in the occupied city, such as closing its Palestinian institutions, changing its character and its policy of ethnic cleansing against the city’s Palestinian population.
“What is required is to assemble the broadest international condemnation of this decision and other violations by the occupation and its colonial projects, and to demand that states exert maximum pressure on the occupying Power to get it to rescind this decision,” said the Foreign Ministry’s statement.