UN rights chief says Israeli colonial expansion a war crime

GENEVA: The United Nations human rights chief said today that Israeli colonies in the occupied West Bank have expanded by a record amount and risk eliminating any practical possibility of a Palestinian state. Volker Turk said that the growth of Israeli colonies amounted to the transfer by Israel of its own population, which he reiterated was a war crime. The US Biden administration said last month the colonies were 'inconsistent' with international law after Israel announced new housing plans for colonists in the West Bank. 'Settler violence and settlement-related violations have reached shocking new levels, and risk eliminating any practical possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian State,' Turk said in a statement accompanying the report which will be presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva in late March. The 16-page report, based on the UN's own monitoring as well as other sources, documented 24,300 new Israeli housing units in the West Bank during a one-year period through to the end of October 2023, which it said was the highest on record since monitoring began in 2017. It also said there had been a dramatic increase in the intensity, severity and regularity of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank by both extremist colonists and the Israeli occupation forces during the same period. Turk's report noted that the policies of Israel's government, which is the most right-wing in the country's history and includes religious nationalists with close ties to settlers, appeared aligned to an 'unprecedented extent' with the goals of the Israeli settler movement. Source: Palestine news & Information Agency – WAFA