The US State Department: The West Bank is a land occupied by (Israel)

Washington-SANA

The US State Department confirmed that President Joe Biden's administration considers the West Bank (occupied territory) by the Israeli entity to withdraw from a report it issued last Tuesday and abstained from using this term.

"This is a historical fact that (Israel) occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights after the 1967 war," the French press agency quoted the ministry’s spokesman, Ned Price, as telling reporters last night.

Regarding the ministry’s refusal to explicitly describe the West Bank as (the occupied land) by the Israeli entity in its annual human rights report, Price explained that “the report actually uses the term occupation in the context of the current situation of the West Bank,” noting that “this is the old position of previous democratic administrations. And the republic of both over several decades ”.

On Tuesday, the official in charge of human rights at the US State Department, Lisa Peterson, told reporters, in response to a question about the reason that prompted the ministry not to return to the formula that was adopted before 2018 regarding the description of the West Bank as the occupied land, that “American diplomats preferred to adhere to geographic determinants only, and this matter is consistent. With our general practices. ”

Until former President Donald Trump assumed power in 2017, the US State Department, in its annual report on the human rights situation in the world, devoted a chapter to (Israel and the Occupied Territories), but this title changed in 2018 to (Israel, the West Bank and Gaza), which is the same phrase that It was mentioned in the report issued last Tuesday.