IN a strongly worded report presented at a biweekly press briefing in Geneva, the United Nations Human Rights Office has condemned Israel’s settlement policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a breach of international law and a violation of Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
“Israel’s settlement policy, its acts of annexation, and related discriminatory legislation and measures are in breach of international law and violate Palestinians’ right to self-determination,” UN spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan told reporters.
The report, covering a 12-month period ending October 2024, documents the ongoing transfer of powers over the Occupied Palestinian Territory from the Israeli military to the government, a move the UN characterizes in stark terms.
“The transfer by Israel of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies amounts to a war crime,” Al-Kheetan stated.
According to Israeli non-governmental organisations cited in the report, plans are underway to construct over 20,000 housing units in new or existing Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem alone. Throughout the rest of the West Bank, more than 10,300 units within existing settlements are in development, alongside an unprecedented establishment of 49 new Israeli outposts.
The report also noted that 214 Palestinian properties and structures have been demolished in East Jerusalem during the reporting period.
“The report also points to plans to increase the provision of Israeli Government services in settlements. This further institutionalises long-standing patterns of systematic discrimination, segregation, oppression, domination, violence and other inhumane acts against the Palestinian people,” Al-Kheetan said.
The climate of expansion has coincided with increased violence. During the reporting period, 612 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, by Israeli security forces and settlers. Twenty-four Israelis were also killed in alleged attacks or clashes with Palestinians.
“The line between settler and State violence has blurred to a vanishing point, with steps taken by Israel to further militarise the settler movement, including by enlisting thousands of settlers into Israeli security forces operating in the West Bank,” the spokesperson added.
Ajith Sunghay, head of the UN Human Rights Office for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, speaking from Amman, expressed alarm at the pace of annexation.
“Israel is taking serious and accelerated steps to annex more and more parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory in violation of international law,” Sunghay said. “In the West Bank, settlements are expanding at an alarming rate. This is coinciding with a series of legislative and policy steps that are increasingly allowing for land appropriation from Palestinians and further facilitating the extension of Israeli sovereignty and laws over the West Bank.”
Sunghay highlighted the forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes and lands in the West Bank, particularly noting a violent Israeli operation that began last January in the northern parts of the West Bank—including Jenin, Tulkarem, and Tubas—which has killed 59 Palestinians, displaced tens of thousands and emptied entire refugee camps.
“Displacement is further fueled by continuously increasing home demolitions and evictions, settler violence that can no longer be separated from state violence, and daily appropriation of Palestinian land on alleged ‘security grounds’ only to be later allocated to serve settlers,” he explained.
Citing last year’s ruling by the International Court of Justice, Sunghay concluded with a call for immediate action: “We have a clear legal pathway to follow here, confirmed last year by the International Court of Justice. The occupation of the Palestinian territory must end as rapidly as possible, all Israeli settlers must be evacuated, and all settlement of this territory must cease immediately.”
