Expanding Zionist settlements a ‘war crime’: UN official

GENEVA: Expanding Zionist settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories constitutes “a war crime” and risks eliminating any likelihood of a viable Palestinian state, the UN rights chief warned on Friday. Volker Turk said there had been a drastic acceleration in Zionist illegal settlement building in the occupied West Bank as it wages a relentless war in the Palestinian territory of Gaza.

The UN high commissioner for human rights said creating and expanding settlements amounted to the transfer by the Zionist entity of its own civilian population into occupied territories. “Such transfers amount to a war crime that may engage the individual criminal responsibility of those involved,” Turk said in a report to the UN Human Rights Council. Reported Zionist plans to build another 3,476 settler homes in the West Bank colonies of Maale Adumim, Efrat and Kedar “fly in the face of international law”, he said.

Spain echoed the sentiment on Friday, with its foreign ministry saying it “strongly condemns” the planned settlements that “undermine efforts to achieve a two-state solution and are an obstacle to peace”. France’s foreign ministry also said it “strongly condemns” the settlement plan and called on the Zionist government to “immediately reverse this decision”. The Zionist entity seized the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Arab-Zionist war. It is illegal under international law for the entity to establish settlements in those Palestinian territories.

Despite opposition abroad, the Zionist entity has built dozens of settlements across the West Bank in recent decades. They are home to more than 490,000 Zionists, living in the same territory as around three million Palestinians. The entity gave the go-ahead for the new homes less than two weeks after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said any settlement expansion would be “counterproductive to reaching enduring peace” with the Palestinians.

Turk said that during the period covered by his report — November 1, 2022, to October 31, 2023 — some 24,300 housing units were added to existing Zionist settlements in the West Bank. That marks the largest number on record since monitoring began in 2017. It includes nearly 9,700 units in east Jerusalem, the UN rights office said. — AFP