HAMILTON, Canada

Palestine's UN envoy Riyad Mansour said Wednesday that Israel’s annexation of Palestinian land is "in full display, unchallenged," warning that Israel "has to choose between annexation and peace."

"Today is the first day of Ramadan, the (Muslim) holy month, that should be a month of peace and spiritual reflection, but Palestinians in occupied Palestine are sadly stripped from their ability to live their faith freely and peacefully," Mansour said at the UN Security Council's high-level session on the situation in Palestine.

"Israel’s goal has been for a while to remove the Palestinian people to seize Palestinian land. The scale and the pace have changed dramatically, but the tools and the objectives are the same: settlements and settler terrorism, land expropriation and diverse excuses and house demolitions, the takeover of land registration, all to serve that ultimate objective: annexation," he said.

"Palestine belongs to the Palestinian people. It is not up for grabs, and it is not for sale. It is not a land without a people, and despite all its efforts, Israel will not transform us into a people without a land," he stressed, adding: "The latest Israeli decisions mean we have reached the end of the road now; annexation is in full display, unchallenged. It will define our region's future and doom it."

Pointing to the Gaza ceasefire, Mansour said it "saved the lives of Palestinians and Israeli lives. (US) President (Donald) Trump, through the ceasefire, delivered the release of the Israeli hostages, but the agony of the Palestinian people is very far from over."

"Israel does not want a ceasefire. Its goals remain occupation, annexation and forcible displacement in Gaza, now split into two in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem," he said.

"The question before us is clear: Israel has to choose between annexation and peace."

Calling for international action, Mansour urged member states to assert that "the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, constitute the territorial unit of the State of Palestine."

"The two-state solution must not become the two-state illusion," he added.