PLO forms follow-up committee on making 2017 year of ending Israeli occupation

The Executive Committee of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) decided late on Tuesday night to form a follow-up committee to make 2017 the year of ending the Israeli occupation.

The PLO executive committee chaired by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in an official statement following a meeting held in Ramallah that the committee will work on practical measures tom end the Israeli occupation.

"The committee will depend on the new United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 that calls on Israel to halt building up Israeli settlements and expanding it in the territories Israel occupied in 1967," said the PLO.

Last week, the UNSC members had overwhelmingly voted in favor of the resolution that condemned settlement in the Palestinian territories and called on Israel to halt it. Altogether 14 countries voted in favor and one country sustained.

The statement said the committee will be also depending on halting the Israeli settlement and on the principle of the two-state solution in order to make 2017 the year of ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The PLO executive committee statement also decided to call on Switzerland, the country that is hosting Geneva 4th conventions, to call for a meeting of the signing countries on the conventions, issued in 1949, to implement it.

"Geneva Conventions must be implemented in the territories occupied in 1967, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem," said the statement which called on the International Criminal Court to investigate the settlement question.

The PLO executive committee called on the world's states to fully and comprehensively boycott the Israeli settlements and all the activities it does as well as all the products mad by companies in the settlements.

Source: Xinhua