UN believes Netanyahu’s map showing the West Bank within Israel is “not useful”

September 4 (EUROPA PRESS) –

UN Secretary-General’s spokesman Stéphane Dujarric has said that the map shown by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which includes the West Bank as part of Israeli territory, is “not particularly useful” at a time when the Israeli army has intensified its operations in these Palestinian territories.

“I think our position is clear. Our map is clear. The display of such maps, I think, is not a good sign and is not particularly helpful,” Dujarric said during a press conference.

In this regard, he recalled the UN’s position on the Occupied Palestinian Territories and its support for the two-state solution with Palestine within the 1967 borders and with its capital in East Jerusalem.

The map was presented by Netanyahu during a press conference in Jerusalem in which he defended, among other things, the deployment of Israeli soldiers in the Philadelphia corridor regardless of any possible agreement for a ceasefire or an end to the conflict in the Gaza Strip, something already rejected by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Egypt.

The Palestinian Authority has repeatedly denounced Israel’s annexation of territories and the construction of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which are considered illegal under international law and one of the main obstacles to the start of a peace process.

The Israeli army launched an offensive against Gaza following attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian factions on October 7, which left some 1,200 dead and nearly 250 kidnapped. The offensive has so far left more than 40,800 Palestinians dead, according to the Hamas-controlled Gazan authorities, a figure to which must be added more than 680 dead in the West Bank and East Jerusalem at the hands of Israeli forces or settlers.