The U.N. human rights office says in a report published Friday that the establishment and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem amount to a war crime.
New Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are growing at a record rate, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has warned.
The Human Rights Council on Friday released a report saying that the expansion of settlements “amount to the transfer by Israel of its own civilian population into the territories that it occupies, which amounts to a war crime under international law.”
Volker Turk has warned that the establishment and continuing expansion of settlements amount to the transfer by Israel of its own civilian population into the territories that it occupies, which, he reiterated, is a war crime under international law.
Commenting on Friday on a report to be presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva in late March, he added that the settlements risk eliminating any practical possibility of a Palestinian state.
“The West Bank is already in crisis. Yet, settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels, and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian State,” Turk said.
Volker Turk criticized Israel on Friday for announcing this week that it will build 3,426 new settlement homes in the West Bank, charging the increase will increase harm to Palestinians living there.
Turk said the settlement plans marked a clear escalation of pushing new Israeli homes into Palestinian land against international law and increased patterns of oppression, violence, and discrimination against them.
“Israel’s actions against the Palestinian population must cease immediately,” Turk said in a statement. “The only way forward is to find a viable political solution that finally ends the occupation, establishes an independent Palestinian state and guarantees the realization of the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people.”
The report said that about 24,300 housing units in existing Israeli settlements, including 9,670 in East Jerusalem were advanced from Nov. 1, 2022, through Oct. 31, 2023, which was the most on record since 2017 when the process began being monitored.
It further said that the Israeli government’s goals appeared aligned “to an unprecedented extent” with the Israeli settler movement which it said aims to expand long-term control over the West Bank and “to steadily integrate this occupied territory into the State of Israel.”
“They also run counter to the views of a broad range of states aid out during hearings just two weeks ago at the International Court of Justice,” Turk said in reference to proceedings examining Israel’s occupation of Gaza.
Earlier this week, Israel said it will build 2,402 homes will be built in Ma’ale Adumim, another 694 in Efrat, and 330 homes in Keidar.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich suggested that the new settlements were an” appropriate Zionist response” to a terrorist attack there last month that killed one and injured 11.
In that incident, three gunmen opened fire on cars lined up at a checkpoint outside of Jerusalem last month in the West Bank.
“The enemies try to harm and weaken us but we will continue to build and be built up on this island,” Smotrich said on social media, according to The Times of Israel.
The U.N. report noted that there have been 603 settler attacks against Palestinians since the Oct. 7, Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the ongoing war in Gaza while 1,222 Palestinians from 19 herding communities have been displaced “as a direct result of settler violence.”
“The West Bank is already in crisis. Yet, settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels, and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian State,” said Turk.
The report covers the one-year period from Nov. 1, 2022, to Oct. 31, 2023, when it says roughly 24,300 housing units in existing settlements in the West Bank were “advanced” — the highest number in a year since monitoring began in 2017. It deplored an increase in the building of new settlement homes in recent months.
Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva, which regularly accuses Türk’s office of overlooking violence by Palestinian extremists against Israelis, said the report “totally ignored” what it said was the deaths of 36 Israelis and injuries of nearly 300 others in attacks due to “Palestinian terrorism” last year.
Much of the international community considers the settlements to be illegal under international law.
Expanded settlement activity and an upsurge in violence in the West Bank in recent months have been largely overshadowed by bloodshed and displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, where Israeli forces have led a blistering military campaign against the militant group Hamas following its deadly Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.
Head of the U.N. Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Ajith Sunghay, told Reuters that the policies of the Israeli government appeared to target expanding long-term Israeli control over the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
“We remind Israel that the transfer of the population of an occupying power into occupied territory, or the forcible transfer of the population within or from occupied territory, or the annexation of territory by use of force are all strictly prohibited – officials and others involved in such conduct risk individual criminal liability.”
Israel, which captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war, claims a biblical birthright to the land where settlements are expanding.
Its military says it is conducting counter-terrorism operations in the West Bank and is targeting suspected militants.
The five-month-old Gaza war has put a renewed focus on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as foreseen by the Oslo accords from the early 1990s.
But there has been little progress on achieving Palestinian statehood since then, with the expansion of settlements being one of the obstacles.
THE U.N. DOCUMENT
Following are excerpts from the U.N. report (A/HRC/55/72: Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan – Advance edited version https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/reports/ahrc5572-israeli-settlements-occupied-palestinian-territory-including-east and OHCHR – State of Palestine | period from 1 November 2022 to 31 October 2023 https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/2024-03/Palestine-March2024.pdf):
Key Conclusions
- The drastic acceleration, particularly after 7 October 2023, of long-standing trends of discrimination, oppression and violence against Palestinians that accompany Israeli occupation and settlement expansion have taken the West Bank to the brink of catastrophe.
- The establishment and continuing expansion of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the occupied Syrian Golan amount to the transfer by Israel of its own civilian population into the territories that it occupies, which is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law. Such transfers amount to a war crime that may engage the individual criminal responsibility of those involved.
- The ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements involves numerous human rights violations against Palestinians, including their rights to self-determination, equality and non-discrimination.
- These violations, which have become more serious over the reporting period, create a coercive environment that displaces Palestinians from their homes and their lands and that could amount to forcible transfer.
- The transfer of wide administrative powers relating to settlements and land administration from the military authorities to Israeli civilian officials, who are elected and accountable to the population of Israel, could facilitate the annexation of the West Bank.
- The international community has failed, both individually and collectively, to take adequate, feasible and effective measures to ensure the compliance of Israel with its international obligations.
- To address the current crisis and the wider context of occupation, it is critical for States Members of the United Nations, including the primary duty bearer, Israel, to find a viable political solution that finally addresses the underlying human rights violations of the Palestinian people.
OUTPOSTS
- According to data from Peace Now, the number of Israeli settler outposts increased to 162. Outposts can be centred around a single caravan, gradually taking over the larger area around them.
- An unprecedented 9 outposts were “legalized” by the Israeli Government, which include 335 housing units spread over 1,100 dunams of land.
- In the first nine months of 2023, four of the eight Palestinians killed by Israeli settlers were killed near newly established settlement outposts.
SETTLER VIOLENCE
- In the first nine months of 2023, an average of three incidents of settler violence occurred each day, totalling 835 incidents – the highest on record. This included intense waves of settler attacks, such as in Huwwarah and Turmus‘ayya. That compared to an average of two a day in 2022, totalling 856 incidents, and one a day in 2021, totalling 540 incidents, which was then the highest on record since the United Nations started recording data in 2006.
- Between 7 and 31 October 2023, OCHA recorded 203 settler attacks against Palestinians, which increased the daily average to eight. During this period, OHCHR monitored the killing of 8 Palestinians (all males), including one boy, all by the use of firearms by settlers. There were also 142 incidents of damage to Palestinian property. Out of the 203 settler attacks, more than one-third involved threats with firearms, including shooting.
- Almost half of all incidents between 7 and 31 October involved Israeli forces escorting or actively supporting Israeli settlers while carrying out attacks.
- Palestinian herding communities in the West Bank remain particularly vulnerable to forced displacement. A total of 1,105 people from 28 Palestinian herding communities – about 12% of the herding community’s population – were displaced from their residences between January 2022 and the beginning of September 2023, citing settler violence and prevention of access to grazing land by settlers as the primary reason.
- This trend escalated dramatically in the last weeks of the reporting period. Between 7 October and 31 October 2023, in 15 herding communities across the West Bank, at least 136 households totalling 878 people, including 435 children, were displaced through settler violence and access restrictions.
ISRAELI GROUP SENDING FOOD TO GAZA BORDER SAYS CONVOY BLOCKED BY POLICE
A Storyful report said on March 8, 2024:
‘Members of an Israeli peace group trying to send food to Palestinians said they were stopped by police shortly before reaching southern Israel’s border with Gaza on Thursday, March 7.
‘Video published by Standing Together – an organization “mobilizing Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel in pursuit of peace,” according to its website – shows a caravan of cars driven by supporters.
‘The convoy was accompanying a truck carrying donated food and was stopped shortly before reaching Kerem Shalom crossing, according to the group and local reports.
‘The group aims to work with international organizations to ensure the donated food is delivered to Gazans, one of the group’s leaders told the Jerusalem Post. Credit: Standing Together via Storyful’
An AFP report said:
‘Bearing food aid and wearing “Don’t Starve Gaza!” t-shirts, dozens of Israeli activists drove towards the border of the besieged territory on Thursday in a show of support for Palestinians.
‘The 30-vehicle convoy got within three kilometers of the Kerem Shalom border crossing before police turned it back.
‘Organisers had expected that outcome, and they acknowledged the convoy was a symbolic act in a society in which their focus on the plight of Palestinians places them in the minority.
‘The goal was to highlight “a different voice” and show “there are people in our society who feel what is happening in Gaza is unacceptable,” said Nadav Shofet, a member of the Stand Together collective which planned the demonstration.’
The report said:
‘Aid groups and the United Nations are warning of looming famine in Gaza, five months after war was triggered by Hamas’s deadly attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
‘Israel’s retaliatory military campaign to eliminate Hamas has killed at least 30,800 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
‘While most demonstrators wore the purple “Don’t starve Gaza!” t-shirts on Thursday, they also tied yellow ribbons to their side mirrors, a symbol of the campaign to bring back the hostages seized by Hamas during the October 7 attack.’
The report said:
‘”Our fight against Hamas is justified,” said 39-year-old speech therapist Orly Shay Keslassy, who took part in Thursday’s demonstration.
‘”But we cannot ignore that there are millions of people that are innocent in Gaza. I can’t live as an Israeli knowing that my government and some people in Israel don’t want people in Gaza to have enough food.”
‘Early on Thursday morning, the demonstrators gathered at a train station in Tel Aviv to prepare the convoy, packing nappies, baby formula, sugar, flour, prepared meals and dates for the upcoming Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
‘Among the vehicles was a seven-tonne truck filled with supplies.’
