UN demands Israel end ‘apartheid system’ in occupied West Bank

The United Nations has called on Israel to dismantle its “apartheid system” imposed on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and across the wider occupied territories.

In a report released on Wednesday, the UN human rights office said that decades of “systematic discrimination” and segregation against Palestinians across the occupied Palestinian territories had “drastically deteriorated” in recent years.

According to the findings, Israeli authorities administer two distinct bodies of law and policies for Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank, resulting in unequal treatment across critical areas of daily life.

“Palestinians continue to be subjected to large-scale confiscation of land and deprivation of access to resources,” the report noted.

It stated this has led to “dispossessing them of their lands and homes, alongside other forms of systemic discrimination, including criminal prosecution in military courts during which their due process and fair trial rights are systematically violated.”

The UN rights office further cited escalating settler violence, often carried out “with the acquiescence, support and participation of Israel’s forces.”

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, and violence has surged across the region since the regime’s genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023.

Since then, Israeli authorities have “further expanded the use of unlawful force, arbitrary detention and torture,” the report said.

It added that civil society groups face increasing repression, media freedoms are being curtailed, and Palestinians are subjected to severe movement restrictions, contributing to  “an unprecedented deterioration of the human rights situation” in the West Bank.

The report also highlighted rapid settlement expansion, illegal under international law, alongside unlawful killings of Palestinians carried out “with almost complete impunity.”

Thousands of Palestinians remain in Israeli custody under “administrative detention,” held without charge or trial.

Investigators said they found “reasonable grounds to believe that this separation, segregation, and subordination is intended to be permanent... to maintain oppression and domination of Palestinians,” constituting a violation of international conventions prohibiting racial segregation and apartheid.

UN rights chief Volker Türk urged Israel to “repeal all laws, policies and practices that perpetuate systemic discrimination against Palestinians based on race, religion or ethnic origin.”

“Whether accessing water, school, rushing to hospital, visiting family or friends, or harvesting olives, every aspect of life for Palestinians in the West Bank is controlled and curtailed by Israel’s discriminatory laws, policies and practices,” Türk stated.

“This is a particularly severe form of racial discrimination and segregation that resembles the kind of apartheid system we have seen before.”

Israel approves 126 illegal units in West Bank settlement evacuated in 2005

Israel’s far-right finance minister has ordered the construction of 126 settler units in a former settlement located in northern part of the occupied West Bank

The UN rights office urged Israel to end its “unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, including by dismantling all settlements and evacuating all settlers, and to respect the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”

In the last two years, nearly 1,102 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, and 11,000 others have been injured in attacks by the Israeli military and settlers.

Around 21,000 Palestinians have also been abducted by the occupying forces.

Rights organizations have been warning that Palestinians in the West Bank face a growing threat of "ethnic cleansing" amid the continuing violence.

In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s prolonged occupation of historic Palestine was unlawful and called for the removal of all settlements in the West Bank and East al-Quds.

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