A UN human rights expert has urged the international community to take decisive action against Israel’s settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories describing a recent plan to build 5000 settler homes as a grave violation of the international law.
“The international community must answer this grave breach of international law with more than mere criticism” Michael Lynk UN special rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 said in a press release on Friday.
“As the Israeli settlements continue to devour the land that is meant for the independent Palestinian state the international community observes it sometimes objects but it does not act” Lynk underscored. “It is high time for accountability.”
The latest announcement means that the Israeli government has approved more than 12150 settlements this year he said.
According to the advocacy group Peace Now this would be the highest number of annual approvals by Israel since Peace Now began to record the figures in 2012 his press release noted.
“While Israel may have shelved its plans for the de jure annexation of the settlements in August it is continuing with its de facto annexation of the Palestinian territory through this unrelenting settlement growth” Lynk said. “Both de facto and de jure annexation of occupied territory are clear violations of the Charter of the United Nations and the 1998 Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court. This acceleration of settlement growth worsens an already precarious human rights situation on the ground.”
Lynk also expressed deep concern that the US administration amended its existing agreements with Israel on October 27 to allow joint funding for projects in the illegal Israeli settlements. Previously the agreements only permitted funding to projects within Israel’s internationally recognized pre-1967 borders.
“These changes to the bilateral agreements between the United States and Israel fly in the face of Resolution 2334 which calls upon all member states to recognize the illegality of the settlements and to distinguish in their relevant dealings between the territory… of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967” he said.
“The international rule of law matters and if we are to avoid the rule of the jungle it must be obeyed. And if the rule of law matters then so must accountability” Lynk said. “If the Security Council is to speak with authority then the disobedience of Council directions must have consequences.”
He recalled that in 2016 former UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon asked: “Is this all meant to simply run out the clock? [The Palestinians] ask: ‘are we meant to watch as the world endlessly debates how to divide land while it disappears before our very eyes’?”
“At the same time that approvals of new settlement homes are accelerating Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes and properties is also increasing” Lynk said.
According to Palestinian human rights organization al-Haq 177 properties were demolished in the three months of July August and September nearly as many as the 186 destroyed in the first six months of the year.
The 76 Palestinian-owned structures destroyed in September displaced 136 Palestinians and affected the livelihood of 300 according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs OCHA.
“The demolitions also violate international humanitarian law and contribute to the coercive atmosphere in the occupied Palestinian territory” Lynk said.
“Accountability must be on the agenda” he stressed. “Settlement products should be prohibited in the international marketplace. Agreements existing and proposed with Israel should be reviewed. The UN database and the current investigations at the International Criminal Court should be supported.”
On at least six occasions since 1979 the UN Security Council has said that the Israeli settlements are a “flagrant violation under international law” and have “no legal validity.”
In 2016 in Resolution 2334 the Security Council demanded that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities.” Moreover since 2017 the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process has reported to the Security Council 14 times that Israel has taken no steps to satisfy this obligation in compliance with Resolution 2334.
