UN human rights experts have called on the international community to honor their obligation to protect the Palestinian people’s rights and to take decisive action to prevent Israel’s planned construction of a record number of settler homes in its settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The experts refer in their comments to Israel’s recent approval of around 2400 housing units and public infrastructure in 21 settlements and outposts in the West Bank.
“These settlement housing units are clearly meant to solidify the Israeli claim of sovereignty over the West Bank” Leilani Farha the special rapporteur for the right to housing and Michael Lynk the special rapporteur for human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 said in a statement.
“Building civilian settlements in occupied territory is illegal as is the annexation of territory. The international community has spoken out against the Israeli settlements but it has not imposed effective consequences for the country’s defiance of international law.”
“Israel’s actions indicate it plans to remain permanently and advance a claim of sovereignty” the human rights experts warned further. “The Israeli prime minister made this clear when he said recently that: ‘No settlement and no settlers will ever be uprooted.’ Should we not take him at his word that Israel has no intention of complying with international law?”
“Criticism without consequences is hollow. The international community has a wide menu of commonly-used countermeasures to push recalcitrant states into compliance with their international duties. If the international community is serious about its support for Palestinian self-determination and its opposition to Israeli settlements then surely the time has come for meaningful action.”
Occupying powers are forbidden under the Fourth Geneva Convention from building civilian settlements in occupied territory. The Rome Statute has defined the transfer directly or indirectly by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory as a war crime. The United Nations Security Council in Resolution 2334 (23 December 2016) stated that the Israeli settlements constitute “a flagrant violation under international law”.
