UN warns Israeli policies in West Bank amount to apartheid

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has warned that Israeli policies imposed on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are increasingly amounting to a system resembling apartheid, citing a severe and systematic erosion of Palestinian rights by Israel.

In a report released on Wednesday, the OHCHR said discrimination against Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory has sharply worsened in recent years, affecting nearly every aspect of daily life.

“There is a systematic asphyxiation of the rights of Palestinians in the West Bank,” said UN rights chief Volker Turk in a statement. “This is a particularly severe form of racial discrimination and segregation that resembles the kind of apartheid system we have seen before”. 

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He stressed that Palestinians’ lives are now overwhelmingly governed by Israeli control and restrictions stemming from a web of discriminatory laws, policies and practices.

Türk said these conditions constitute one of the most serious forms of institutionalised discrimination and segregation.

The report highlighted that Israeli restrictions affect access to essential resources and services, including water, education and healthcare, as well as freedom of movement, visits to family and friends, and basic economic activities such as agriculture and olive harvesting.

The OHCHR warned that the cumulative impact of these policies is further entrenching inequality and undermining the fundamental rights of Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank.

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