\n Expanding Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories constitutes \"a war crime\" and risks eliminating any likelihood of a viable Palestinian state, the UN rights chief warned on Friday.\n<\/p>\n
\n Volker Turk said there had been a drastic acceleration in Israeli illegal settlement building in the occupied West Bank as it wages a relentless war in the Palestinian territory of Gaza.\n<\/p>\n
\n The UN high commissioner for human rights said creating and expanding settlements amounted to the transfer by Israel of its own civilian population into occupied territories.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Such transfers amount to a war crime that may engage the individual criminal responsibility of those involved,\" Turk said in a report to the UN Human Rights Council.\n<\/p>\n
\n Reported Israeli plans to build another 3,476 settler homes in the West Bank colonies of Maale Adumim, Efrat and Kedar \"fly in the face of international law\", he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Spain echoed the sentiment on Friday, with its foreign ministry saying it \"strongly condemns\" the planned settlements that \"undermine efforts to achieve a two-state solution and are an obstacle to peace\".\n<\/p>\n
\n France's foreign ministry also said it \"strongly condemns\" the settlement plan and called on the Israeli government to \"immediately reverse this decision\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Israel seized the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.\n<\/p>\n
\n It is illegal under international law for Israel to establish settlements in those Palestinian territories.\n<\/p>\n
\n Despite opposition abroad, Israel has built dozens of settlements across the West Bank in recent decades.\n<\/p>\n
\n They are home to more than 490,000 Israelis, living in the same territory as around three million Palestinians.\n<\/p>\n
\n Israel gave the go-ahead for the new homes less than two weeks after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said any settlement expansion would be \"counterproductive to reaching enduring peace\" with the Palestinians.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Violence concerns -\n<\/p>\n
\n Turk said that during the period covered by his report -- November 1, 2022, to October 31, 2023 -- some 24,300 housing units were added to existing Israeli settlements in the West Bank.\n<\/p>\n
\n That marks the largest number on record since monitoring began in 2017. It includes nearly 9,700 units in east Jerusalem, the UN rights office said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Turk's report found that the Israeli government's policies \"appear aligned, to an unprecedented extent, with the goals of the Israeli settler movement to expand long-term control over the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, and to steadily integrate this occupied territory into the State of Israel\".\n<\/p>\n
\n At the same time, Palestinians are being forced from their homes by Israeli settler and state violence, it said.\n<\/p>\n
\n It also pointed to forced evictions, non-issuance of building permits, home demolitions and movement restrictions imposed on Palestinians.\n<\/p>\n
\n It found there had been 602 settler attacks against Palestinians since October 7, the date of Hamas's attack inside Israel, leading to the war in Gaza.\n<\/p>\n
\n The UN rights office said it had documented nine Palestinians killed by West Bank settlers using firearms, and another 396 killed by Israeli security forces.\n<\/p>\n
\n Two others were killed by either Israeli security forces or settlers.\n<\/p>\n
\n In response, Israel's mission in Geneva said Turk and his office had \"once again totally ignored the deaths of 36 Israelis, including women and children and one tourist, and the 296 injured as a result of Palestinian terrorism in 2023, before and after October 7.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Human rights are universal, yet Israeli victims of Palestinian terrorism are ignored by the office time and time again,\" the Israeli mission said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Expanding Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories constitutes \"a war crime\" and risks eliminating any likelihood of a viable Palestinian state, the UN rights chief warned on Friday. Volker Turk said there had been a drastic acceleration in Israeli illegal settlement building in the occupied West Bank as it wages a relentless war in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-129338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n