The United Nations stated on Wednesday that the discrimination and segregation that Israel has inflicted on Palestinians in the West Bank for decades is intensifying and called on the country to end its “apartheid system.”
In a new report, sharply criticized by Israel, the UN human rights office stated that “systematic discrimination” against Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories has “deteriorated dramatically” in recent years.
“There is a systematic strangulation of the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk in a statement.
“Whether it is access to water, school, transportation to the hospital, visits to family or friends, or olive harvesting, all aspects of the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank are controlled and restricted by Israel’s discriminatory laws, policies, and practices,” he added.
“This is a particularly egregious form of racial discrimination and segregation that resembles the kind of apartheid system we have seen before.”
Several independent experts affiliated with the UN have described the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories as “apartheid,” but this is the first time a UN human rights official has used the term.
Israel’s diplomatic mission to the UN in Geneva strongly criticized the report’s “absurd and distorted allegations of racial discrimination” against Israel, claiming it exemplifies the “inherently political obsession […] of the UN human rights office to vilify Israel.”
Increased settler violence
The report states that Israeli authorities “treat Israeli settlers and Palestinians residing in the West Bank under two distinct legal frameworks and policies, resulting in unequal treatment on a number of critical issues.”
“Palestinians continue to be subjected to large-scale land confiscation and deprivation of access to resources,” it added.
This has led to “the dispossession of their lands and homes, along with other forms of systemic discrimination, including criminal prosecution in military courts, during which their rights to due process and a fair trial are systematically violated.”
Turk demanded on Wednesday that Israel “repeal all laws, policies, and practices that perpetuate systemic discrimination against Palestinians on the grounds of race, religion, or ethnicity.”
The discrimination has been exacerbated by the continued and escalating violence of settlers, in many cases “with the acquiescence, support, and participation of Israeli security forces,” according to the human rights office.
More than 500,000 Israelis currently live in settlements in the West Bank, occupied since 1967 and home to approximately three million Palestinians.
Violence has increased in recent years, particularly since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2013, which triggered the Gaza conflict.
Since the start of the Israeli military campaign in Gaza, Israeli troops and settlers have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to an AFP tally based on figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
According to official Israeli figures, at least 44 Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or Israeli military operations during the same period.
Near-total impunity
Since the start of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, Israeli authorities have also “further expanded the use of unlawful force, arbitrary detentions, and torture,” according to the report.
The increased “repression of civil society and undue restrictions on press freedom (and) severe restrictions on movement” have also characterized “an unprecedented deterioration of the human rights situation” in the West Bank, it added.
There has also been a rapid expansion of settlements, considered illegal under international law, even as unlawful killings of Palestinians have been committed “with near-total impunity,” the report warned.
Of the more than 1,500 killings of Palestinians that occurred between the beginning of 2017 and September 30 of last year, Israeli authorities have opened only 112 investigations, resulting in a single conviction, it noted.
The report states that it found “reasonable grounds to believe that this separation, segregation, and subordination is intended to be permanent […] in order to maintain the oppression and domination of the Palestinians.”
This, it emphasizes, constitutes a violation of an international convention against racism, “which prohibits racial segregation and apartheid.”
The UN human rights office on Wednesday urged Israel to end its “illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, including the dismantling of all settlements and the evacuation of all settlers.”