UN says Israeli settlement expansion in Palestinian territories amounts to war crime

The international community has long viewed Israeli settlements as a violation of international law and a hindrance to Palestinian statehood.

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”.

“Settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels, and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state,” Turk stated in a statement that accompanied a 16-page report about the growth in illegal Israeli housing units.

The report, based on the UN’s own monitoring as well as other sources, documented 24,300 new Israeli housing units in the occupied West Bank during a one-year period through to the end of October, which it said was the highest since monitoring began in 2017.

It also added there had been a dramatic increase in the intensity, severity and regularity of both Israeli settler and state violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, particularly since Hamas’s October 7 attacks on southern Israel, which triggered the current war in the Gaza Strip.

Since then, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces or by settlers, the report stressed.

It additionally pointed to forced evictions, non-issuance of building permits, home demolitions and restrictions on movement imposed on Palestinians.

The US, Britain and France have imposed sanctions on Israeli settlers for acts of violence and incitement against Palestinians living in the West Bank in recent weeks.

Israel’s settlement-planning authority on Wednesday greenlit permits for nearly 3,500 new housing units in occupied Palestinian territory, the first such approvals since Israel’s war on Gaza began last year. The approval sparked widespread condemnation from several countries, including Israel’s allies.

The Israeli plans to build settler homes in Maale Adumim, Efrat and Kedar flew “in the face of international law”, Turk said.

The UN’s special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, Tor Wennesland, also stated all settlements were “illegal under international law” and a “driver of conflict” in the West Bank.

Israel started building settlements after capturing the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Six-Day War. It is illegal under international law for Israel to establish settlements in these Palestinian territories.