UN rights expert says Israeli settlements a 'war crime'

Israel blasted the report as “the latest one-sided and biased report against Israel."

The UN special rapporteur on Palestine, Michael Lynk, delivers a video message on May 18, 2018, in Geneva, during a special session of the UN Human Rights Council to discuss "the deteriorating human rights situation" in the Palestinian territories, after Israeli forces killed 60 Palestinians along the Gaza border. - FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images

Al-Monitor Staff
July 9, 2021


A top human rights expert for the United Nations called Friday on the international community to designate the establishment of Israeli settlements as a war crime.

On Friday, Michael Lynk, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, called the settlements “the engine of Israel’s 54-year-old occupation, the longest in the modern world.”

“In my report, I conclude that the Israeli settlements do amount to a war crime,” Lynk said, adding that they violate the Rome Statute’s ban on transferring parts of a civilian population into an occupied territory.

In a statement provided to Reuters, Israel’s UN mission in Geneva dismissed the report as “the latest one-sided and biased report against Israel” and accused Lynk of ignoring rights abuses by the Palestinians.

The Palestinians envision the West Bank as part of a future state, with East Jerusalem as its capital. The UN says more than 680,000 settlers now live in nearly 300 settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Most of the international community views the settlements as violating international law and undermining the prospects for a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

"The time for criticism of the Israeli settlements has passed,” said Lynk, who is a Canadian academic. “A new approach grounded in international law is the only path to a just end to this perpetual occupation.”

In March, the International Criminal Court announced an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by Israel in the Palestinian territories, part of which will focus on settlement expansion in the West Bank. Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute, the international treaty that established the court, and has denounced the probe.

On Thursday, Israel’s highest court upheld a controversial nation-state law that defines settlements as “a national value” and Israel as the home of the Jewish people. Critics of the law say it discriminates against Israel’s Arab citizens.

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