Geneva-Sana
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Michael Lynk, denounced the apartheid regime established by the Israeli occupation authorities in the occupied Palestinian territories, calling for the adoption of a list of accountability measures to completely end the Israeli occupation and its racist practices against the Palestinians.
The United Nations website quoted Lynk as saying during his presentation of his report to the Human Rights Council of the International Organization in Geneva: “Today, in the Palestinian territory occupied by (Israel) since 1967, there is an overly discriminatory dual legal and political system that grants concessions to the 700,000 Israeli settlers who live in Palestine. in 300 illegal Israeli settlements in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
He continued, "In the same geographical space, more than three million Palestinians live, but they are separated by walls, checkpoints, streets and an entrenched military presence under repressive rule of institutional discrimination and without any way to establish a true Palestinian state that the world had long promised that it was their right."
Speaking about the situation in the besieged Gaza Strip, Link said, "Another two million Palestinians live in Gaza, which is constantly described as an open prison without adequate access to electricity, water or health, with a collapsing economy and the inability to travel freely to the rest of Palestine or the outside world."
Referring to the Israeli occupation entity, the UN rapporteur stated that “a system that intentionally and clearly prioritizes the basic political, legal and social rights of one group over another within the same geographical unit on the basis of racial, national and ethnic identity meets the international legal definition of apartheid.”
“Israeli military rule in the Occupied Palestinian Territory was deliberately created with the aim of imposing facts on the ground primarily through settlements and roadblocks in order to create a permanent and illegal demographic that supports Israeli claims to sovereignty over the occupied territory while confining Palestinians to smaller and more restrictive land reserves,” Lynk noted. separate.”
The Special Rapporteur held the "international community" a lot of responsibility for the current situation in the occupied territories and said: "For more than 40 years, the Security Council and the General Assembly of the United Nations have declared in hundreds of resolutions the illegality of Israel's annexation of the occupied land and the illegality of its construction of hundreds of settlements, and that its denial of the right to decide The fate of the Palestinians violates international law,” he said, calling for the adoption of a list of accountability measures to “completely end the Israeli occupation and apartheid practices in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
It is noteworthy that Lynk called last December for the Israeli occupation entity to be held accountable for its occupation of Palestine and for compliance with international law, pointing to its constant disregard for Security Council resolutions on settlements.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, warned today that the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories has reached catastrophic levels due to the continuous violations of the Israeli occupation and its settlers against the Palestinians.
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