Dr. Susan Power:

I thank the committee for inviting me to speak. Yesterday, we saw the injury of 612 Palestinian civilians in Jerusalem and Israel's killing of 25 Palestinians, including three children, in the Gaza Strip, which really highlights the urgent need for the international community to intervene and address the root causes. These are Israel's colonisation of Palestinian lands, its de jureand de facto annexation of Palestinian territory and its implementation of an apartheid regime, all ongoing since 1948 and continued since 1967 under the fiction of a belligerent occupation.

Annexation is the unilateral act of a state proclaiming its sovereignty over the territory of another. It is prohibited as an act of aggression under the UN Charter. It is prohibited in occupied territory under the Geneva Conventions and it is a war crime under the statute of the ICC. De facto annexation occurs when actions on the ground indicate the implied intent of the occupying power to permanently incorporate the occupied territory. We have seen examples of this by Israel. In 1967, Israel immediately de facto annexed East Jerusalem. This was an act which the UN Security Council condemned under Resolution 242, emphasising the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war and calling for Israel's immediate withdrawal. It was some 13 year later, in 1980, before Israel then de jureincorporated Jerusalem into its domestic law, at this time declaring that Jerusalem, complete and united, was capital of the state of Israel.

In the rest of the West Bank we are seeing key indicators of de facto annexation taking place. This is not a temporary occupation. We have witnessed the construction of more than 250 settlements and outposts in the occupied territory with connecting infrastructure back to Israel in addition to the illegal transfer in of more 650,000 Jewish-Israeli settlers. This is permanently altering the demographic of the occupied Palestinian territory.

At the same time, Israel demonstrates an animus or intent to permanently use and exploit Palestine's sovereign resources as its own, including quarried materials, Dead Sea minerals, water, gas and oil. In addition to this, and in recent years, we have seen Israel directly applying its own law in the occupied Palestinian territory. A recent example of this is the application of its higher education law in 2018, which brings academic institutions in West Bank settlements under the accreditation of the Council for Higher Education in Israel.

This is coupled with expressions of an intention to annexe. We can extrapolate these intentions even from policies and plans relating to the expansion of the Jerusalem municipality. In particular, the Jerusalem 5800 plan has been endorsed by the Israeli Minister of Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage and Minister of Tourism. This includes the absorption into the Jerusalem municipality of settlements such as Modi'in, Beit Shemesh, Gush Etzion and Ma'ale Adumim, in addition to incorporating Palestinian cities such as Bethlehem, Ramallah, Jericho and the entire Jordan Valley into a greater expanded Jerusalem metropolitan area. We have also seen and witnessed expressions of intent to annexe coming from Prime Minister Netanyahu who stated that Israel has every right to claim sovereignty over these territories in Area C and that the establishment of Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria is not illegal.

Why are we looking for a motion on de facto annexation now? Last year, we saw Israel emboldened by the US peace plan and pushing towards a de jure annexation last July.

Since this has been called off, we have now seen a real acceleration in de facto annexation. We have seen house demolitions increasing, with 535 documented last year by Al-Haq. This was twice the annual average of the past ten years. We are really seeing a rapid increase in demolitions. In 2020, Israel also accelerated settlement expansion, and appropriated a further 5,000 acres of Palestinian lands for settlements. We are now seeing an acceleration towards the conclusion of the colonisation of Palestinian territory.

Ireland must intervene. Annexation, de facto and de jure, is an internationally wrongful act for which there is state responsibility. Ireland has third state obligations to not recognise and not render agent assistance to a responsible state that is maintaining a situation of annexation. We call on Ireland, as a starting point, to: introduce a motion recognising Israel's de facto annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory; to recognise the state of Palestine, which is already recognised by 139 states, and which is a non-member state of the UN; and to progress the occupied territories Bill. As the UN Special Rapporteur, Mr. Michael Lynk, said, international law must not be an umbrella that folds at the first sight of rain. It is critical, given the situation on the ground, to respond to the root causes. Ireland is looked on as a leader on Palestine, and it must come to the fore. We cannot hide behind the collective ambivalence of Europe on this. Palestine is disappearing before our eyes. The erasure of Palestine has happened on our watch. We must address the root causes, introduce a motion on annexation, and ensure the collective right of self-determination of Palestinian people as a whole and the collective right of return of Palestinian refugees and exiles in the diaspora to their homeland.