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Israeli settler violence, settlement expansion and territorial annexation in the occupied West Bank are worsening two years after the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation unlawful, the U.N. human rights office said Wednesday.
The office said attacks by Israeli settlers and the establishment of settlements and outposts had reached record levels, urging countries to act together to end the occupation.
“We are alarmed by the Israeli government’s announcement to further increase the number of settlements and outposts, and open calls by Israeli leaders for revenge and collective punishment against Palestinian communities, accompanied by threats to turn the West Bank into another Gaza,” spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said.
In a nonbinding advisory opinion issued in July 2024, the International Court of Justice said Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory was illegal.
“Israel’s continued presence in the Palestinian territories is illegal,” then-presiding Judge Nawaf Salam said at the court in The Hague.
He said Israel was obligated to end its unlawful presence “as rapidly as possible.”
Violence in the West Bank has intensified since the Hamas attack in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, with near-daily attacks by Israeli settlers and regular raids on Palestinian villages.
Shamdasani said eight Palestinians, including a boy, and two members of the Israeli military had been killed in the West Bank since last Thursday.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
“With attacks by Israeli settlers, and the creation of settlements and outposts, hitting an all-time high, third states must act urgently and in unison to halt the continuing killing and dispossession of the Palestinian people, and to bring an end to the Israeli occupation,” Shamdasani said.
Her remarks followed a warning Tuesday from Ramiz Alakbarov, the U.N. deputy special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, who told the Security Council that conditions in the occupied West Bank were “rapidly deteriorating.”
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