Council president states concern about Israeli West Bank measures.

The Security Council President on 26 January issued a three-paragraph statement noting "concern" expressed over the extension by the Israeli Knesset of emergency regulations in territories occupied by Israel.

In the statement (document S/16293), the Council President urged that "no steps be taken which could lead to further aggravation of tension in the area", and recalled previous Council resolutions stressing the applicability of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949.

Javier Chamorro Mora (Nicaragua), council President for January, received four communications on the matter -- from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) (document S/16249); from Egypt (document S/16255); from the Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (document S/16261 -- A/39/70); and from Israel (document S/16269).

The PLO said the Knesset had approved laws which had "the aim of replacing the Jordanian legislation 'theoretically in force in the occupied West Bank'". The laws would authorize the application of civil and criminal laws in "Judea, Samaria and Gaza'", and the imposition of taxes on the transfer of property and applicable "only to Israeli citizens purchasing such prperty, whether 'in Israel, Judea, Samaria or Gaza'".

The PLO described those measures as "one more step in the process of creeping annexation and discrimination against Palestinian people still living in their homes in the Palestinian territories". The united Nations and the Security Council should take immediate steps to declare such measures illegal and to bring to an end Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, it stated.

Egypt said the Israeli legislation was a serious violation of Security Council resolution 242 (1967), as well as of the framework of peace in the Middle East signed in September 1978, and...