The Human Rights Council discussed a report on the settlement and its repercussions on the rights of the Palestinian people , presented by the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, reviewed before the Human Rights Council a report on Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem and the occupied Syrian Golan, through which he confirmed that the number of Israeli settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has increased from 520,000. to more than 700,000 over the past decade.

The report stated that these settlers lived illegally in 279 Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including 14 settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, with a total population of more than 229 thousand people, and that 147 of these settlements were illegal outposts under local law. Israeli.

The report documented a relationship between Israeli settlement expansion and settler attacks against Palestinians over the past decade, noting that the United Nations verified 3,372 incidents of settler violence that injured 1,222 Palestinians.

The report indicated that Israel failed to investigate and prosecute violent crimes committed by settlers and Israeli forces against Palestinians, stating that the current Israeli plan to double the number of settlers in the occupied Syrian Golan by 2027, and to increase the number of settlements from 34 to 36 is an unprecedented plan.

The report covered violations of international law and settlement monitoring over the past ten years, including the number of settlements and settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the continuation of land control and settlement expansion, and settler attacks on public and private property.

The report concluded with a set of recommendations and conclusions, and considered settlements a war crime according to the law. This was followed by interventions on behalf of the Arab Group, the Group of Cooperation Council States, the Islamic Group, the Group of Non-Aligned Countries, the African Group, and the Group of Friends of the United Nations Charter. 47 countries spoke in their national capacities from all continents, and condemned the settlement policy in the occupied Palestinian territory and the policy of occupation, especially in light of the current government and the decision to legislate settlements, cancel the decision to disengage and build new settlement units.

A number of countries condemned the attacks on Palestinian civilians, places of worship and civil society institutions. The various groups and civil society organizations demanded the need to put pressure on the occupying power to stop the settlement policy and the escalation against civilians, and to end the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip.

The Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations Office in Geneva, Ambassador Ibrahim Khreishi, said in his speech that the report of the High Commissioner 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 international legitimacy resolutions, including those of the Security Council, the General Assembly and the Council. Human rights, the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, and all relevant laws and decisions.

He added that the report included settlement developments over the past ten years, and after the decision of the Human Rights Council in 2012 to form a fact-finding committee about settlement and its repercussions on the rights of the Palestinian people, which continued under the successive occupation governments, as the number of settlers reached more than 700 thousand in 274 settlement, 13 of which are in East Jerusalem.

Khreishi pointed out that with the arrival of the far-right occupation government with a fascist tendency, which was formed on the basis of strengthening settlements, annexation, population transfer, and the Judaization of Jerusalem, this government legalized 9 new settlement outposts, and the Knesset approved the abolition of the disengagement law of 2005, which means a return to evacuated settlements north of the city. West Bank, and also announced the start of building 10,000 new settlement units.

He added that Israel is continuing its settlement occupation project based on apartheid and the apartheid system, calling on the international community and the United Nations to take punitive measures to stop this legal crime, and the High Commissioner to update the list of companies operating in the settlements in implementation of the Council’s mandate in this regard, and to stop all forms of dealing with settlements and settlers. And with the current prime minister and his extremist ministers, most of whom are settlers. This also requires recognition of the State of Palestine from countries that have not yet recognized and supported the two-state solution, and not repeating statements that call for a negotiated two-state solution.

He pointed out that this year marks the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 30th anniversary of the Vienna Declaration, and several weeks after the 75th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, which began with the United Nations recognition of the establishment of the State of Israel at the hands of Zionist gangs that destroyed more than 500 villages and towns. Palestinian, killed thousands and displaced more than 850,000 Palestinians, whose number now exceeds six million refugees around the globe, and stole half of the area approved by the General Assembly in its unjust resolution in 1947, known as Resolution 181, the decision to divide Palestine into two states.

Khreishi touched on the violations and crimes committed by the occupying power, its army, and its settlers, which continue on an incremental and daily basis, in addition to the new draft law in the Knesset that prohibits talking about the Christian faith in the occupying state, warning of the repercussions of continuing to attack Christian and Islamic places of worship in the near future, and what Some still say that Israel shares the same values and principles, and some also say that Article 7 is unfair and unfair, which requires everyone to stop double standards and stop politicization, as Israel is the first country to violate the Charter of the United Nations, and it is the country that most violates international law and humanitarian law. International, and international human rights law since 75 years until today.

Source: Wafa Agency.