Thirty leading human rights experts at the United Nations called on the international community to use a "range of available legal means" to step in against Israel's ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories, and said that the creeping annexation of the West Bank makes apartheid "an unavoidable consequence."

“Israel’s continuous annexation of portions of the occupied Palestinian territory, now focusing on large swathes of the West Bank after unlawfully annexing east Jerusalem, suggests that a concrete effort may be under way to annex the entire occupied Palestinian territory in violation of international law,” the experts said.

The experts pointed to a similar letter of 46 experts to oppose Israel's proposed annexation of the West Bank in 2020. "Our call went unheard then and we cannot stay silent now," they wrote. 

They specifically pointed to the powers granted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich over the civil administration as evidence of annexation, "which is categorically prohibited under international law." 

"Over the last five decades, Israel has confiscated or endorsed confiscation of Palestinian lands and resources, resulting in over 270 colonies housing 750,000 Israeli settlers,” they added.

"While the Israeli settlers in occupied Palestinian territory enjoy civil and political rights, Palestinians are subject to military rule. “The consolidation of an apartheid regime is an unavoidable consequence of such a system,” they concluded.

The experts also pointed to double standards between the United Nations' approach to Palestinians and Ukrainians.

“The large majority of Member States of the UN unequivocally condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its annexation of Ukraine’s eastern parts as an act of aggression”, the experts said, “and they imposed sanctions on Russia to encourage a cessation of this violation of international law”. “By contrast, Israel’s annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory is obfuscated by political rhetoric, debates and negotiations, which ultimately rest on double standards,” they said.

And they continued: "This proposal for the selective enforcement of international law undermines the foundations of the United Nations Charter and the promise of the universality of international human rights, 75 years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."

The experts expressed their deep concern about the escalating scope and brutality of violence against Palestinian men, women and children, noting the violation of the right to life, with the intensification of annexation, calling on Israel to immediately end these violations.

They expressed their fear that the cycle of violence would continue unless the primacy of international law is restored as a basis for peace and security, urging the Member States of the United Nations to take advantage of the range of legal means available to seek an end to these illegal actions.

The experts called for justice, and respect for international law without double standards, to end this cycle of violence and secure a just and lasting peace.

The international experts included Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967; Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences; Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, Special Rapporteur on the rights to water and sanitation; Ravindran Daniel (Chair-Rapporteur), Sorcha MacLeod, Chris Kwaja, Carlos Salazar Couto, Working Group on the use of mercenaries; Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights; Surya Deva, Special Rapporteur on the right to development; Fernand de Varennes,Special Rapporteur on Minority issues; Isha Dyfan, Independent Expert on the Situation of Human Rights in Somalia; Dorothy Estrada Tanck (Chair), Ivana Radačić (Vice-Chair), Elizabeth Broderick, Meskerem Geset Techane and Melissa Upreti, Working Group on discrimination against women and girls; Michael Fakhri, Special Rapporteur on the right to food; Ian Fry, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights in the context of climate change; Ashwini K.P, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism;