Human Rights Council: Israeli settlements building activities in the occupied Palestinian Territory constitute a war crime 

The United Nations Human Rights Council stated that the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory are considered a “war crime” according to international law and relevant UN resolutions.

WAFA News Agency stated that the report presented by the High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on Wednesday before the Council on settlements and its repercussions on the rights of the Palestinian people documented the increase in the number of settlers in the West Bank, including occupied Al-Quds (Jerusalem), from 520,000 to more than 700,000 during the past decade, and the continuation of the occupation’s confiscation of Palestinian lands to expand settlement operations, in addition to settler attacks on public and private property.

The report pointed out that the United Nations verified 3,372 incidents of violence perpetrated by settlers against Palestinians, which resulted in the injury of 1,222 of them.

In turn, the Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations and international organizations in Geneva, Ibrahim Khreishi, welcomed the report of the High Commissioner, pointing out that it monitored a wide range of legal violations of the political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people, as well as violations of relevant international legitimacy resolutions.

Khreishi pointed out that the occupation continues its settler-colonial occupation scheme based on the apartheid system and its crimes against the Palestinians, calling on the international community to pressure it to stop its crimes that violate international covenants and laws.

Inas Abdulkareem