Middle East Quartet: Israel has destroyed hopes for a Palestinian state

The Middle East Quartet has accused Israel in a recent report of undermining hopes for the development of Palestinian territories and the establishment of a Palestinian state through extensive settlement construction in occupied areas. The report, which Reuters claims to have obtained on Thursday, July 1, states that Israel is deliberately dismantling the two-state solution through a gradual process, with several ministers in the current Israeli government suggesting that this solution should be abandoned. According to the report, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself stated a day before the March 2015 elections that 'a Palestinian state will never be established,' but changed his stance under global pressure shortly after the elections. The Quartet's report emphasizes that seventy percent of the areas in the West Bank, referred to as 'Area C,' are under Israeli control, where significant portions of Palestinian land reserves are located. Palestinians had hoped to utilize these areas for agriculture and housing in a future state. The report highlights that Israel has not issued a single construction permit to Palestinians in these areas since 2015, while the number of Israelis living in settlements in the occupied territories has increased to 570,000. Nikolai Mladenov, the UN Secretary-General's Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, presented the Quartet's report to the Security Council on Thursday, proposing several 'logical' and 'practical' solutions to revive the peace process. This report was released shortly after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories. The Quartet includes the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, and Russia. According to Reuters, the Quartet also urged the Palestinian Authority to 'combat terrorism and provocations against Israel decisively.' The Secretary-General's representative condemned the recent violent events in Israel and the Palestinian territories during the UN meeting on Thursday. Mladenov referred to the murder of an Israeli girl shortly before the Security Council meeting and the attack by two armed Palestinian assailants on a shopping center in Tel Aviv in recent days, but he also condemned the Israeli army's action in killing a Palestinian boy inside a family's car on a road in the West Bank. The Quartet's report states that the violence leading to mutual killings, public provocations from both sides, Israeli settlement activities, and the fact that Gaza is still under Hamas control rather than the Palestinian Authority are the four main factors contributing to the deadlock in the region. More violence; more victims. Meanwhile, on Friday, July 2, a Palestinian girl was shot dead by Israeli border guard soldiers while attacking a soldier at a checkpoint in Hebron. Palestinian media reported that the girl, armed with a knife, was 27-year-old Sarah Hajooj Tarayra and a relative of Muhammad Tarayra. Muhammad Tarayra, a 17-year-old Palestinian, had entered the home of a Jewish family in the settlement of Kiryat Arba in the West Bank on Thursday, killing a 13-year-old girl named Hallel Ariel while she was asleep in her room. Israeli settlement guards found and killed Muhammad Tarayra shortly after. The 20,000-strong settlement of Bani Na'im in the West Bank, where Muhammad Tarayra lived, has been under Israeli military siege since early Thursday. Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Ariel family on Friday to express solidarity with them. The murder of this 13-year-old girl in her sleep at home has shaken Israeli public opinion; Netanyahu stated that 'this crime shows the brainwashing effects on Palestinians that have led to the promotion of blind hatred against Jews.' On Thursday night, a Palestinian attack on passersby in Netanya, Israel, injured an Israeli man and woman; the Palestinian assailant was shot dead by a supermarket guard nearby. Meanwhile, the last Friday prayer of Ramadan was held relatively peacefully, with tens of thousands of Palestinians attending the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem.