Israel's settlement expansion in West Bank 'amounts to war crime': UN rights chief

Israel’s continued settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, “amounts to a war crime”, the UN human rights chief said in a report released by his office today, urging the international community to take decisive action.

“The transfer by Israel of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies amounts to a war crime,” Volker Turk said, emphasising that Israel’s settlement policy violates international law and the Palestinian right to self-determination.

The report, covering the period from November 2023 to October 2024, documents an alarming increase in Israeli settlement activity, including plans for over 20,000 housing units in occupied East Jerusalem and the establishment of 49 new outposts in the occupied West Bank.

Israeli authorities also demolished 1,779 Palestinian structures, forcibly displacing over 4,500 people.

Illegal Israeli settlers, emboldened by government support, have also escalated violence against Palestinian communities, with an average of 118 incidents of settler violence recorded per month. The report notes that Israeli security forces and settlers killed 612 Palestinians during the reporting period, while 24 Israelis lost their lives in clashes and attacks.

“The line between settler and State violence [has] blurred to a vanishing point,” the report warned, citing the militarisation of the settler movement and the enlistment of settlers into Israeli security forces.

The UN report urged Israel to halt all settlement activity, evacuate settlers from the occupied territory, and make reparations for damages caused by decades of unlawful settlement expansion.

Turk called on the international community to take “meaningful action” to address the situation and uphold international law.

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