Amnesty International has strongly condemned a Monday announcement by the United States Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, who said that the US no longer considers Israeli settlements in the Occupied West Bank to be inconsistent with international law.

Responding to the announcement by the United States Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, that the U.S. will not consider Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal under international law, Amnesty International USA’s advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa, Philippe Nassif, said: “Today, the United States government announced to the rest of the world that it believes the U.S. and Israel are above the law: that Israel can continue to violate international law and Palestinians’ human rights and the U.S. will firmly support it in doing so.”

“Today’s announcement does not and will not change the law which is crystal clear: the construction and maintenance of settlements in the Occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, breaches international law and amounts to war crimes”, said Nassif. “It does however place the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, at increased risk by giving Israel the green light to continue with its settlement building and expansion policy which sit at the heart of human rights crisis in the area.”

“We are unafraid to say clearly and without ambiguity: no U.S. announcement can change the law and we will continue to work hard to ensure that international law and human rights are respected, protected, and those perpetrating violations will be held to account, added Nassif.

Amnesty International said that Israel’s policy of settling its civilians in occupied Palestinian territory and displacing the local population contravenes fundamental rules of international humanitarian law.

“All states that are party to the Fourth Geneva Convention, including Israel and the U.S. are under an obligation to ‘ensure respect’ for the Convention”, said the international organization. “The obligation to ensure respect has been widely interpreted as requiring positive action on the part of individual states. All states are also under an obligation under customary international law to refrain from conferring recognition on an illegal situation, such as that created by Israeli settlements in the West Bank.”

Amnesty International called on Israel to immediately cease all settlement activity as a first step to dismantling all Israeli settlements and related infrastructure in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Trump administration said on Monday that it no longer considers Israeli settlements built in the occupied West Bank as illegal, the latest in a series of moves by the Trump administration that reversed decades of US policy.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the administration of President Donald Trump will no longer abide by a 1978 State Department legal opinion that the settlements were "inconsistent with international law".

The move sparked a wave of condemnations by international rights groups and Palestinian diplomats who said the announcement contravenes international law and UN resolutions.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the US announcement "rights a historical wrong".

More than 600,000 Israelis currently live in settlements in the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem. Some three million Palestinians live there.