Relations between the UN and Israel will not warm up after the report from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights published Friday March 8 regarding Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The establishment and continued expansion of such settlements “is tantamount to Israel’s transfer of its own civilian population to the territories it occupies” and “such transfers constitute a war crime that may result in individual criminal liability for those involved.” , denounces the UN document which covers the period from November 2022 to the end of October 2023.
“Settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state,” according to the report.
“Reports released this week that Israel plans to build 3,476 additional settler homes in Maale Adoumim, Efrat and Kedar go against international law,” said Volker Türk, the High Commissioner for Human Rights. man, quoted in a press release published on the occasion of the publication of the report. “The size of existing Israeli settlements expanded significantly” during the period under review.
Around 24,300 housing units within existing Israeli settlements in the West Bank were added during this period, the number “the highest ever recorded since the census began in 2017.” This included approximately 9,670 housing units in East Jerusalem, the document said.
“The establishment and continued expansion of illegal Israeli settlements occurs alongside the displacement of Palestinians due to Israeli settler and state violence,” the report further notes. Added to this are “forced evictions, non-issuance of building permits, house demolitions and movement restrictions for Palestinians.”
Convictions also came from Paris and Madrid
France and Spain condemned, Friday evening, these Israeli plans to expand colonies in the occupied West Bank. Paris “calls on the Israeli government to immediately reverse this unacceptable, illegal and irresponsible decision,” the French foreign ministry said in a statement. The text adds that “Israeli colonization of the Palestinian Territories (…) constitutes a flagrant violation of international law and must stop” and calls for the dismantling “without delay” of the outposts.
For its part, Madrid also strongly condemned “the approval of plans for the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank”, asking “Israel to reverse this measure” in a statement published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “Settlements violate international law, undermine efforts to achieve a two-state solution and constitute an obstacle to peace,” it added.
Since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, after the unprecedented attacks by the Islamist movement on Israeli territory, violent incidents have also broken out in the occupied West Bank. Already at the end of December, Volker Türk estimated that “the intensity of violence and repression is unheard of for years” in the West Bank.
Israel accuses UN of ignoring its victims
More than 490,000 people currently live in settlements in the West Bank, deemed illegal under international law. In the context of the war in the Gaza Strip, American Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed at the end of February that “new settlements are counterproductive to achieving lasting peace.”
For its part, the Israeli embassy in Geneva accused the UN of ignoring Israeli victims, without commenting on the merits of the accusations: “The High Commissioner for Human Rights has once again completely ignored the deaths of 36 Israelis, including women, children and a tourist, and 296 injured as a result of Palestinian terrorism in 2023, before and after October 7.” “Human rights are universal, but Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism are constantly ignored” by the High Commission, insists the Israeli press release.