A new report released on Wednesday by the office of Volker Türk, U.N. high commissioner for human rights, claims that “Israel is violating international law requiring states to prohibit and eradicate racial segregation and apartheid.”
The report, titled “Israel’s discriminatory administration of the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” argues that unequal treatment and abuses of Palestinians have intensified since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Jerusalem’s subsequent military response.
“There is a systematic asphyxiation of the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank,” Türk stated, using the international term for the Judea and Samaria region. “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.”
“This is a particularly severe form of racial discrimination and segregation that resembles the kind of apartheid system we have seen before,” Türk added.
The Israeli mission to the U.N. in Geneva condemned the publication of the report, stating that Türk’s office “abuses its position and dire resources to issue yet another unmandated report against Israel” while “other mandates remain nixed on account of budget cuts.”
The Israeli mission said the report itself contains “absurd and distorted accusations of racial discrimination” which ignore “fundamental facts that lie at the basis of the conflict.”
