• Pompeo visits Israeli-occupied West Bank and Golan Heights
• West Bank area of the former British-mandated (1920–47) territory of Palestine west of the Jordan River, claimed from 1949 to 1988 as part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan but occupied from 1967 by Israel.
• The territory, excluding East Jerusalem, is also known within Israel by its biblical names, Judaea and Samaria.
• Area of the former British-mandated (1920–47) territory of Palestine west of the Jordan River, claimed from 1949 to 1988 as part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan but occupied from 1967 by Israel.
• The territory, excluding East Jerusalem, is also known within Israel by its biblical names, Judaea and Samaria.
• The United Nations General Assembly, the UN Security Council, and the International Court of Justice have said that the West Bank settlements are violative of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
• Under the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949), an occupying power “shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.
• Under the Rome Statute that set up the International Criminal Court in 1998, such transfers constitute war crimes, as does the “extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly”.
• India traditionally believes in the 2-state solution and supports the establishment of a sovereign independent and a viable state of Palestine.
• However, India’s support for Palestine has not deterred its growing relationship with Israel.

Credit The Hindu