A Palestinian community is seen from the window of a building in the Israeli settlement of Hebron in the West Bank city of Hebron on January 18, 2017.
Chris McGrath | Getty Images
Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory have reached record levels and threaten to eliminate any real possibility of a Palestinian state, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Friday.
The growth of Israeli settlements amounts to Israel’s transfer of a country’s population, said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Walker Turk, who reiterated that this was a war crime.The U.S. Biden administration said last month that Israel’s announcement of settlements was “incompatible” with international law new housing plan in the occupied West Bank.
“Settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached alarming new levels and threaten to eliminate any real possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state,” Turk said in a statement. The report will submitted to the Human Rights Council in Geneva in late March. .
The Israeli diplomatic mission in Geneva said the report should include the deaths of 36 Israelis in 2023. “Human rights are universal, but Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism are ignored time and time again by the (High Commissioner’s Office).” said in a statement.
The 16-page report, based on the UN’s own monitoring as well as other sources, documents the construction of 24,300 new Israeli housing units in the occupied West Bank in the year to the end of October 2023, which it said was the most on record The highest level since monitoring began in 2017.
Violence continues to increase
The report also states that the intensity, severity and regularity of Israeli settler and state violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has increased dramatically, particularly since the Israeli occupation Hamas launches deadly attack on Israel on October 7.
Reports say that since then, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces or settlers.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast War and claims birthright to the land where settlements have grown. Its military said it was conducting counter-terrorism operations in the West Bank, targeting suspected militants.
Turk’s report noted that the Israeli government is the most right-wing in the country’s history, includes religious nationalists with close ties to settlers, and that its policies appear to be aligned with the goals of the Israeli settler movement to an “unprecedented degree.”
It documented cases of settlers harassing or attacking Palestinians wearing full or partial Israeli military uniforms and carrying military-style rifles, blurring the lines between them. At times they were allegedly shot at close range.
Five months of Gaza war brings renewed attention two state solution The Israeli-Palestinian conflict foreseen by the Oslo Accords of the early 1990s.
But since then, there has been little progress in Palestinian statehood, with settlement expansion one of the obstacles.
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