Ramallah: In the latest provocation, the Israeli regime announced it would raise 10,000 Israeli flags in Occupied Jerusalem next month to commemorate its 50-year occupation of Jerusalem.
Israel annexed and occupied the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1967 when Arab countries lost the six-day war.
While the Israeli regime has raised flags to commemorate the occasion before, it decided it would triple the number of flags this year.
The move comes after US President Donald Trump, who had been widely seen in Israel as sympathetic towards colonies, told Netanyahu last month to “hold back on colonies for a little bit”.
Just days later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the building of the first new colony in the occupied West Bank in two decades.
The new colony would be the first to be built in the West Bank since 1999.
The Israeli regime hopes that an exceptionally pro-Israeli Trump administration will turn a blind eye to its provocations and abuses.
About 400,000 Israeli colonists live in the West Bank which is also home to 2.8 million Palestinians. Another 200,000 Israelis live in Occupied East Jerusalem.
Palestinians want the West Bank and East Jerusalem for their own state, along with the Gaza Strip.
The move also comes against the backdrop of growing violence in the Palestinian territories in response to an uptick in Jewish raids on Al Haram Al Sharif.
Israel has been imposing restrictions on Palestinians from accessing the Muslim site — the third holiest in Islam — to pave the way for more colonists to raid the holy shrine and perform their Jewish and Talmudic rituals inside the holy site.
Under a status quo agreement, Jews may visit Al Haram Al Sharif, but may not perform religious rituals there.
Israel has also banned Palestinians from burying their dead in specific parts of Bab Al Rahma cemetery, a resting place for many of the city’s historic figures.
The regime has also removed Arabic signage from many streets in Occupied Jerusalem replacing them instead with Hebrew signs in an attempt to Judaise the city and erase any Palestinian or Muslim identity.
Israel continues to build illegal colonies on Palestinian land, routinely demolishes Palestinian homes and carries out extrajudicial killings of Palestinians with little or no rapprochement from Washington.
The US dedicates nearly one-fifth of its entire US foreign aid budget to Israel. Israel receives about $3b in direct foreign assistance each year amounting to nearly $10.2m each day.
