It described it as the "historical fact" ... The US State Department considers the West Bank a "land occupied" by Israel

The US State Department confirmed that President Joe Biden's administration considers the West Bank to be an "occupied land" by Israel, after the annual report on human rights issued by the ministry abstained from considering it as such, as the report maintained the same wording during the era of former President Donald Trump.

State Department spokesman Ned Price said that Israel's occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Syrian Golan Heights after the 1967 war is a "historical fact."

"It is a historical fact that Israel occupied the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights after the 1967 war. That is precisely why the Human Rights Report for 2020 used that term in the current context of the West Bank, and this was the position," Price said in a statement published by the US State Department on its website on Thursday. The long-term administration of previous administrations of both parties over many decades. Do we think the West Bank is occupied? Yes! ”

Last Tuesday, the US State Department issued its annual report on the human rights situation in the world, in which it refrained from using the term "occupation" to describe Israel's relationship with the West Bank.

Price stressed that this explanatory paragraph does not reflect a change in position on the part of the Biden administration, which - unlike its predecessor - publicly advocates the two-state solution.

The US State Department used to call the West Bank and others the "occupied land," and it used to hold a chapter in its annual report entitled: "Israel and the Occupied Territories", until former US President Donald Trump came to power in 2017, when the term "Israel, the West Bank and Gaza" was used. The same phrase was mentioned in the report issued by the US State Department last Tuesday.

Israel occupied the Palestinian territories, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in 1967. Several international resolutions issued by the United Nations stipulate the right of refugees to return to their lands, which has not yet been implemented.

On Thursday, the US State Department spoke about its vision of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, as it renewed its call for a two-state solution, which would allow Israel and the Palestinians to live in peace, as she put it.

The State Department also renewed its call on Israel to stop activities that undermine the two-state solution, and for the Palestinians to "stop incitement to violence."