PA responds as Israeli settlers 'threaten Abbas with assassination'

The Palestinian government says it will finalise a submission to the United Nations Security Council over settlers’ allegedly putting up posters across occupied Nablus threatening to kill Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Palestine’s permanent representative to the UN Riyad Mansour said on Wednesday that a draft protest note to be submitted to the Security Council over Israeli settlers’ alleged threats to assassinate Abbas is ready.

Suspected Israeli settlers on Tuesday put up posters of Abbas’ face bordered by crosshairs, labelling him a “supporter of terrorists", near the Huwwara intersection in occupied Nablus.

Israeli soldiers deployed in the area refused to remove them, causing further anger in Ramallah.

The PA released a statement saying Israelis living in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank have “crossed all lines”.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. More than 600,000 Israeli Jews live in settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

All Israeli settlements across the occupied West Bank are classed as illegal under international law, particularly article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which asserts that "the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies".

Israeli forces and settlers routinely and sometimes fatally attack Palestinians in the occupied territories, demolishing their homes, poisoning their livestock and vandalising their properties.